A method is provided for analyzing the channel impulse response of a transmission channel using a time-discrete adaptive equalizer connected in series to the transmission channel, which it equalizes. The method includes determining the IIR filter coefficients (a.sub.n) of a recursive filter portion and the FIR filter coefficients (b.sub.n) of a non-recursive filter portion of the time-discrete adaptive equalizer, at least partially allocating the IIR filter coefficients (a.sub.n) and the FIR filter coefficients (b.sub.n) to input vectors for a discrete Fourier transformation, determining output vectors from the input vectors using a discrete Fourier transformation, forming discrete transmission function values by division of the output vectors, and determining the channel impulse response from the channel transmission function using an inverse discrete Fourier transformation.