an embodiment of the invention is described with reference to the figures using reference designations as shown in the figures . referring to fig1 a gaussian minimum shift keying ( gmsk ) communication system includes a transmitter 10 and a receiver 12 communicating gmsk signals s ( t ) from a transmitting antenna 14 to a receiving antenna 16 . the transmitter 10 includes a data source 18 , a formatter 20 and a modulator 22 . the formatter 20 , such as an nrz formatter , communicates a sequence of data pulses d ( t ) to the modulator 22 that in turn includes a gaussian filter 24 receiving the data pulses d ( t ) and providing pulse responses , an integrator 26 receiving the pulse responses and providing phase responses , and a phase modulator having a modulation index of π / 2 for modulating a carrier reference 30 by the phase response to generate the gmsk signals s ( t ) transmitted from antenna 14 . the transmitter 10 is of conventional design . the signal s ( t ) arrives at the receiving antenna 16 arbitrarily in time as a received signal r ( t ) having a carrier phase difference between the arrived signal r ( t ) and a locally generated carrier reference , not shown . the receiver 12 includes a demodulator 32 for demodulating the receive signal r ( t ) into a demodulated received signal ro ( t ) and for generating a bit synchronization timing signal τb ( t ). the receiver 12 also includes a gmsk carrier phase acquisition loop 34 for estimating the carrier phase θc and a gmsk carrier frequency acquisition loop 36 for estimating the carrier reference fc . this is required due to the difference in frequency caused by doppler shifts and doppler shift rates . the receiver 12 further includes a gmsk timing acquisition loop 38 for providing a bit synchronization estimate signal τo , and includes a data detector 40 for receiving and detecting the demodulated receive signal ro ( t ) and the bit synchronization signal τb ( t ) for reconstructing and estimating the data sequence { circumflex over ( d )}( t ) communicated to a data sink 42 . the demodulator 32 includes a gmsk carrier tracking loop 44 for receiving the received signal r ( t ), the carrier phase estimate θc and the carrier frequency estimate fc for generating the demodulated receive signal ro ( t ). the demodulator 32 further includes a gmsk timing recovery loop 46 for receiving the initial timing synchronization estimate signal τo and the demodulated received signal ro ( t ) and for generating the bit synchronization timing signal τb ( t ). the receiver 12 is of conventional design with an improvement in the gmsk timing recovery loop 46 including a conventional digital tracking transition loop 48 and a hard limiter 50 that provides a hard clocking signal c h ( t ) for improved bit synchronization and bit period tracking . referring to fig1 and 2 , and more particularly to fig2 the gmsk timing recovery loop includes the new hard limiter 50 and the conventional digital tracking loop 48 including an in - phase integrator 52 , a hard limiter 54 , a transition detector 56 , a mixer 58 , a mid - phase integrator 60 , a delay 62 , a sampling rate down converter 64 , loop filter 66 , a numerically controlled oscillator ( nco ) 68 , and a timing logic generator 69 . an error variant estimator 70 and an error comparator 71 are used for initial bit timing synchronization . the hard clocking signal c h ( t ) is fed into the integrators 52 and 60 . the in - phase integrator 52 and mid - phase integrator 60 are used to generate an error bit timing signal τe ( t ) in a close loop operation . the in - phase integrator 52 provides an in - phase continuous signal with zero crossings . the in - phase continuous signal is hard limited between plus or minus values by limiter 54 providing an in - phase square wave signal to the transition detector 56 detecting positive to negative and negative to positive transitions of the in - phase square wave signal . the mid - phase integrator 60 integrates from − t / 2 to + t / 2 , where t is the bit period , to provide an error output communicated to the delay 62 that is mixed with the output of the transition detector 56 . the mid - phase output is delayed by delay 62 to match in time for synchronization with the output of the transition detector 56 . the mixer 58 provides a positive or negative error signal to the converter 64 that is respectively used to advance or retard the bit timing signal τ ( t ) by an amount corresponding to the error output of the mid - phase integrator 60 . the sampling rate converter 58 provides a down sampled error signal to the loop filter 66 that averages and converts the timing tracking errors into a numerical value that is communicated to the numerically controlled oscillator 68 that then adjusts the digital value of the initial frequency estimate τo to the current bit timing error signal τe ( t ) communicated to the timing logic generator 69 for adjusting the bit timing signal τb ( t ). the timing logic generator 69 provides signal synchronization between the bit timing signal error τe ( t ) and the bit timing signal τb ( t ) clocking the integrators 52 and 60 to maintain the digital tracking loop 48 in synchronization in reference to the demodulated signal ro ( t ). in operation , the nco 68 provides the bit timing error signal τe ( t ) that is fed into the hard limiter 50 that in turn provides the hard clocking signal c h ( t ) as part of a control feed back loop in which the hard limiter 50 functions to adjust the zero crossings transition of the received signal ro ( t ) by an amount indicated by the bit timing signal error τe ( t ). initially , the initial bit timing estimate signal τo is received by the nco 68 for setting the initial bit time signal error τe ( t ), and hence the bit timing signal τb ( t ). the error variance estimator 70 provides an error signal indicating the first moment and second moment of the bit timing signal τb ( t ). the error variant signal is then communicated to the error comparator 71 that compares error variant signal to a predetermined value to determine if multiples of the zero crossings of the received signal ro ( t ), indicating the bit period is within at least ½ of the bit period of the bit timing signal τb ( t ). the comparator 71 communicates an initialization signal to the hard limiter indicating when the dttl bit timing signal τb ( t ) is within at least ½ of the bit period of the demodulated receive signal ro ( t ). if that is not true , the hard limiter does not adjust the hard limiter signal c h ( t ) by the bit timing error signal τe ( t ) from the dttl 48 and the clock signal c h ( t ) is triggered only by zero crossing of the received signal ro ( t ). the unadjusted clock signal c h ( t ) is communicated to the dttl for updating the bit timing signal τb ( t ) to be within at least ½ of the bit periods of the received signal ro ( t ). once the bit timing signal τb ( t ) is initially updated , the hard limiter 50 then adjusts the transitions of hard clocking signal c h ( t ) corresponding to the zero crossings of the received signal ro ( t ) to be in synchronism with transitions of the bit timing signal τb ( t ). by way of example , the carrier frequency fc may be 1 mhz with a bit period of one microsecond in a channel having a bsnr of 6 db . during initialization , the error variance estimator 70 may provide an error variance of between 2 . 0 to 0 . 6 percent . the comparator 71 may have a predetermined error variance value of 0 . 5 percent . after initialization , the error variance may drop to 0 . 4 percent , indicating reduced jitter , as the hard limiter 50 adjusts the hard clock signal c h ( t ), by an amount indicated by the bit timing error signal τe ( t ), at which time , the dttl stabilizes the bit timing signal τb ( t ) with reduced jitter for improved data recovery . bit synchronization timing improvement is perfected by the use of the hard limiter 50 within the feed back loop of the digital tracking loop 48 in which the limiter 50 receives the bit timing error signal τe ( t ) adjusted into the hard clock signal c h ( t ) using the demodulated receive signal ro ( t ). the demodulated receive signal ro ( t ) is a continuous signal that has zero crossings at multiples of the bit period . however , the zero crossing waveforms do not have sharp transitions and have superimposed noise , and consequently , the bit timing from the zero crossings of the received signal ro ( t ) will jitter from zero crossing to zero crossing thereby producing poor triggering transitions . however , the hard limiter 50 , after the initial adjustment , adjusts these poor triggering transitions of the received signal ro ( t ) to be in synchronism with the transitions of the bit timing signal τb ( t ) having consistent bit periods referenced to sharp transitions for stable dttl clocking through reduced jittering of the hard clocking signal c h ( t ) to thereby reduce the jitter in the bit timing signal τb ( t ), for improved data detection . the digital tracking transition loop 48 of conventional design optimally operates upon square waveforms having sharp transition at the zero crossings having a predetermined consistent bit period between zero crossings , but not upon analog type gmsk demodulated signals ro ( t ) that would otherwise result in poor bit time synchronization and excessive jitter , due to noise and gaussian filtering . hence , the hard limiter 50 is used to square demodulated waveform ro ( t ) so as to provide the dttl 48 with sharp zero crossing transitions for improved synchronization . the time duration between the zero crossings of the gmsk demodulated receive signal ro ( t ) is a multiple of the bit period . the hard limiter 50 functions as a comparator in respect to the demodulated receive signal ro ( t ) to generate a square wave having multiple bit period duration then adjusted by the bit timing signal τb ( t ) so that the hard limiter 50 provides the square wave hard clocking signal c h ( t ) square wave each having the same bit period with slight timing errors upon which the dttl operates to adjust the bit timing signal τb ( t ) under close loop control . referring to all of the figures , and more particularly to fig3 conventional bpsk or qpsk timing jitter performance 72 is improved by the gmsk jitter performance 74 and 76 , for gmsk timing recovery loops responsive to a gmsk filter having bt equal to 0 . 125 and a truncation length l of eight , or to a gmsk filter having a bt equal to 0 . 143 and a truncation length of seven , respectively . the gmsk jitter performances 74 and 76 is improved over gmsk systems using conventional squaring loops . those skilled in the art can make enhancements , improvements and modifications to the invention , and these enhancements , improvements and modifications may nonetheless fall within the spirit and scope of the following claims .