1. A method of signal processing in a linear equalization receiver operating with a fixed equalization delay grid, the method comprising: receiving a CDMA communication signal that includes pilot symbols for channel estimation and generating averaged net channel estimates corresponding to a set of processing delays on the fixed equalization grid; generating a measured covariance matrix corresponding to the processing delays, based on measuring cross-correlations for the CDMA communication signal between pairs of the processing delays; computing a rank one matrix as an outer product of the averaged net channel estimates; forming a structured covariance matrix by adding the rank one matrix to the measured covariance matrix; and obtaining a filtered covariance matrix by averaging elements in the structured covariance matrix that correspond to like differences in the processing delays and replacing such elements with their average values; and generating combining weights, for demodulating data symbols from the CDMA signal, from the filtered covariance matrix.