1. In a communication system including a receiver having at least one receiving antenna for receiving at least one information burst transmitted by at least one transmitting device where the information burst contains a number of data symbols and a pilot symbol sequence of content known at both the at least one transmitting device and the receiver, a method for computing a channel transfer function between the at least one transmitting device and the at least one receiving antenna, comprising the steps of: A) computing a simulated received pilot signal for at least one receiving antenna that is based on the pilot symbol sequence, a channel modeling sequence, and a set of predetermined basis functions; B) computing an error signal between the simulated received pilot signal and the received pilot symbol sequence, wherein the error signal is based on the channel modeling sequence and the set of predetermined basis functions; C) computing the channel modeling sequence, wherein a power of the error signal is minimized; and D) computing the channel transfer function by weighting the predetermined basis functions in response to the channel modeling sequence, wherein the power of the error signal is minimized.