Patent ID: 8121565

Claim:
A reception apparatus having multiple receive antennas in a communication system, the apparatus comprising: an interference signal controller for measuring signals received at the multiple receive antennas, and determining one of at least two received signal combining schemes according to a ratio of strength of a received signal from a serving base station that presently provides a service signal, to strength of received signals from interference base stations that provide interference signals from among the signals received at the multiple receive antennas; at least two signal combiners for combining the signals received at the multiple receive antennas according to the determined received signal combining scheme; and an antenna path selector for delivering the signals received at the multiple receive antennas to one of the at least two signal combiners according to the determined received signal combining scheme, wherein the interference signal controller determines a first scheme for combining the signals based on a fixed number of pilots if the ratio is greater than a predetermined threshold and determines a second scheme for combining the signals based on a variable number of pilots if the ratio is less than or equal to the predetermined threshold.