The invention relates to a method for the transmission of a global pilot signal from a base station of a radio communication system to a user station and a base station suitable for carrying out the above method. The base station comprises a number of antennae each with a characteristic pilot bit sequence. The global pilot signal is generated by overlaying the pilot bit sequences emitted from the several antennae of the base station, whereby the following method steps are carried out: a) division of the several antennae into a first group and a second group each with at least one antenna, b) transmission of the pilot bit sequences of the antennae of just the first group and c) modification of the compositions of the first and second group and return to step b).