Convergence of blind fractionally spaced equalizers is improved, and misconvergence is corrected by training the equalizers to detect convergence of one adaptive filter, copying the tap weights of the converged adaptive filter to the other adaptive filters and shifting the tap weights of the other adaptive filters according to the expected phase difference between the respective filters. In a two-dimensional orthogonal modulation scheme the converged weights of a first filter are copied to a second filter and shifted .pi./2. For the two dimensional orthogonal modulation scheme, the probability of a proper convergence can be increased by choosing initial tap weights for the two adaptive filters with a 3.pi./4 phase difference.