A method is presented for achieving a considerable improvement in phase tracking of square-wave subcarriers or other square waves. The amplitude of the phase quadrature reference signal is set to zero, except near the zero crossings of the input signal. Without changing the loop bandwidth, the variance of the phase error can be reduced by approximately W sigma /sub 0//sup 2/ where sigma /sub 0//sup 2/ is the phase error variance without windowing and W is the fraction of cycle in which the reference signal has a nonzero value. Simulation results confirm the results of the analysis and establish minimum W versus SNR (signal-to-noise ratio). Typically, the window can be made so narrow as to achieve a phase error variance of 1.5 sigma /sub 0//sup 4/.>