A receiver includes a channel estimator for estimating a channel impulse response of a radio channel; an equalizer for generating linear minimum mean-square error equalizer coefficients and providing an equalized signal to a correlator; an estimating unit for forming an initial estimate of received data elements on the basis of an equalized signal; and a processing unit. The processing unit is configured to calculate a scaling factor by taking an inverse value, subtracted from a value of one, of a conjugate transpose of a linear minimum mean-square error equalizer coefficient vector multiplied by a channel impulse response vector, and to use the scaling factor for determining reliability of the initial estimate of the received data elements.