A transmitter, receiver, and method for channel estimation for a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) communication system in which the transmitter includes a multiplicity of transmit antennas spaced such that spacing between adjacent antennas provides a spatial correlation coefficient greater than a threshold level. The transmitter selects a subset of the multiplicity of transmit antennas for transmitting the pilot reference signals. The pilot reference signals are transmitted only from the selected subset of transmit antennas to the receiver. The receiver includes a channel estimator configured to derive a channel estimation for all of the multiplicity of transmit antennas using the received pilot reference signals and known or estimated spatial correlation among the multiplicity of transmit antennas.