In order to receive or transmit an RF signal, the desired channel frequency (fcarrier) must be programmed into the transceiver. Note that this frequency is the actual center frequency of the desired channel and not an LO frequency. The carrier frequency is generated by a fractional-N synthesizer. While the synthesizer is used to determine the carrier frequency of the transceiver, it is often easier to think in terms of “channels” or “channel numbers” than as an absolute frequency value in Hz. Also, there may be some timing-critical applications, such as frequency hopping systems, in which it is desirable to change frequency by programming a single register. Once the channel step size is set, the frequency may be changed by a single register corresponding to the channel number. A nominal frequency is first set and then a channel step size and channel number, relative to the nominal setting, are set. The frequency hopping step size is set in increments of 10kHz with a maximum channel step size of 2.56MHz.