This letter proposes a fast carrier search method, the Carrier Search Step method (CSSM), to quickly detect the carrier frequency even when mobile stations have no knowledge of the carrier frequencies used [1]. CSSM consists of two operations: 1) mobile stations use the coarse-to-fine search to detect the synchronization channel (SCH), and 2) the center frequency of SCH is shifted within the channel bandwidth so that mobile stations can detect the SCH in an early step of the coarse-to-fine search. Compared with conventional methods, CSSM can reduce carrier search time by 90% when SCH bandwidth is 1.08MHz and the channel bandwidth is 5MHz. The reduction in carrier search time strengthens as the channel bandwidth increases.