Equalizing method and equalizer for OFDM receiver

An equalizer for an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) receiver and an equalizing method are provided. An estimator (106) according to the present invention extracts scattered pilots from a plurality of received carriers in units of four symbols, and estimates each channel characteristic value in the position of the extracted scattered pilots. An adder (114) obtains a channel characteristic values in the position of scattered pilots of a period of three sub channels by adding the channel characteristic value with respect to each respective sub channels in units of four symbols. An interpolator (116) interpolates the sub channel characteristics of data between the scattered pilots using the channel characteristic values in the position of the scattered pilots of the period of three sub channels, and provides the characteristic values of all the sub channels. A compensator (118) which can be formed of a one tap filter compensates for channel distortion of the plurality of received carriers using the characteristics of all the sub channels. According to the present invention, it is possible reduce the amount of calculation and to realize simple hardware, since the four symbols are equalized by the channel characteristic of one symbol using the channel characteristic value in the position of the scattered pilot having the period of three sub channels, thus it is not necessary to trace the position of the pilot in every symbol.