Techniques to filter pilot symbols for a pilot in an "adaptive" manner to provide an improved estimate of the response of a communication channel. A received signal may experience different channel conditions at different times, and different multipaths may also experience different channel conditions even when received close in time. A pilot filter with an adaptive response is used to provide an improved estimate of the channel response. Various adaptive pilot filtering schemes may be used. In a first scheme, the channel conditions are estimated based on the quality of the received pilot. In a second scheme, the channel conditions are estimated based on the quality of the pilot estimates (i.e., the filtered pilot symbols). For each scheme, a particular filter response is selected based on the estimated quality of either the received pilot or the pilot estimates.