The invention relates to a method of estimating a downlink channel in a radio system, and to a radio system. The method includes transmitting a common pilot signal and a user-specific pilot signal, of which channel estimates are formed. A channel estimate for the user-specific channel that has transmitted the user-specific pilot signal is formed of said channel estimates by selecting an appropriate scaling factor. The quality of the user-specific channel estimation and thus also the performance of the radio system are improved by the invention.