A method and apparatus for acknowledging reverse link transmissions in a communications system. An information bit is set and then repeated. The repeated information bit is covered with a code having a frame length defined by S=M*N*R, where S is the frame length, M is the number of code symbols per slot, N is the number of slots per frame, and R is the code repetition factor. The gain is then set relative to a power control transmission and the frames resulting from the coding operation are then modulated. After modulation, the result is spread on a designated channel using quadrature spreading and after spreading the acknowledgement is transmitted over the reverse link.