of broad distributions of power on short time scales in the GWPS. On average, the wavelet technique claims a detection (at or above the significance level reported by the wavelet analysis for 3C 273) 0.4$\%$ of the time (Fig. \[hist\]). The Monte Carlo simulations suggest a significantly higher rate of false detections than is implied by the statistics based on the GWPS. However, they are consistent with the latter estimates [*within the margin of error*]{}, given that only 1000 realizations of a time series were generated. Better simulation statistics could be achieved by increasing the number of time series realizations by several orders of magnitude, but devoting time and resources to this is not warranted. Visual inspection of the simulated light curves reveals that they differ qualitatively from the actual time series: a better correspondence can be achieved with the addition of randomly distributed Gaussian-profile bursts of fixed, small amplitude. Evidently, the process under study is not strictly a stationary, first order one, and the formal statistical measures of significance should be regarded as only indicative of the high likelihood of a quasi-periodic phenomenon in this source. A more detailed analysis, allowing for nonstationary processes, is beyond the scope of 