Patent ID: 8023593

Claim:
A method for wireless communication comprising the steps of: receiving a frame of data said frame including a preamble portion, a header portion and a data portion; determining a coarse channel estimate using channel estimation symbols received in said preamble portion of said frame; processing said header portion of said frame of data using said coarse channel estimate to generate received header symbols; determining a fine channel estimate based on said coarse channel estimate and said received header symbols; and equalizing said data portion of said frame using said fine channel estimate, wherein said step of processing said header portion of said frame of data using said coarse channel estimate to generate received header symbols further comprises the steps of: removing a cyclic prefix from said header portion; applying a phase rotation to said header portion; transforming said header portion into a frequency domain to generate frequency domain header symbols; and applying said coarse channel estimate to said frequency domain header symbols to generate channel compensated, frequency domain header symbols, wherein said step of determining said fine channel estimate based on said coarse channel estimate and said header symbols further comprises the steps of: re-encoding said channel compensated, frequency domain header symbols into a transmission format; comparing said re-encoded, channel compensated, frequency domain header symbols with said frequency domain header symbols to generate at least one channel estimate; and averaging said at least one channel estimate with said coarse channel estimate to generate said fine channel estimate.