Patent ID: 8750407

Claim:
A method of channel coding a radio signal for a High Speed Downlink Shared Channel (HS-DSCH) radio channel utilizing 16 QAM channel coding, wherein the method is performed in an I-Q coordinate system having an In-phase dimension and a Quadrature dimension, said method comprising the steps of: channel interleaving the HS-DSCH radio signal; and inserting soft pilot symbols selected from a 16 QAM constellation by low-level puncturing of channel coded bits to provide the soft pilot symbols with constant amplitude in only one dimension in the I-Q coordinate system, wherein the low-level puncturing includes one of the following: providing constant Quadrature amplitude by replacing the punctured bits with known bit patterns having four bit labels in which a last bit label is fixed to a value of “1”; or providing constant In-phase amplitude by replacing the punctured bits with known bit patterns having four bit labels in which a third bit label is fixed to a value of “1”.