1. A method of controlling a generalized Rake (G-Rake) spread spectrum receiver based on a frequency shift of a received, despread signal, said method comprising: obtaining by an offset shift estimator, the frequency shift of the received signal; and calculating by a controller, G-Rake combining weights based on the frequency shift, wherein the calculating step includes utilizing the frequency shift for: controlling a channel estimation algorithm; determining a number of unique channel estimations per slot; and controlling an update rate of an impairment covariance matrix utilized to produce impairment correlation estimates for different fingers of the G-Rake receiver; wherein the step of controlling the channel estimation algorithm includes: determining by the controller, a low-rate channel estimation of the received signal; determining by the controller, a plurality of high-rate channel estimations of the received signal; and selecting by the controller, either the low-rate channel estimation or the high-rate channel estimations based on the frequency shift; and wherein, when the frequency shift is less than or equal to a first threshold value, the step of calculating G-Rake combining weights based on the frequency shift also includes: selecting the low-rate channel estimation; computing the impairment covariance matrix once per slot; and computing one set of combining weights per slot.