Abstract: The critical aspect of the spectrum allocation in distributed cognitive radio networks is how efficiently the spectrum is managed and how the Secondary User’s (SU) link is maintained once the Primary User (PU) arrives or when, the channel degrades due to interference. To address this problem, in this study a distributed cognitive MAC protocol is proposed to achieve compensation to the suspended secondary link and avoid collision with the primary, which obviously increases the network performance. The 802.11 based Backup Channel Reservation protocol (BCR-MAC) is proposed to reconstruct the second communication if forced termination occurred, the protocol operates over a separate common control channel and multiple data channels; hence it is able to deal with dynamics of resources availability effectively to facilities quicker and smoother channel switching to free sensed or reserved channel. A higher number of sensed channels lead to better chances for reservation procedure to be implemented. The protocol effectively improves the network throughput due to a higher successful transmission as demonstrated by analysis and simulation.