A process for equalizing streams of OFDM subcarrier data computes the noise variance for each stream, and forms a stream weighting coefficient by equalizing the noise variance, such that for a first stream having a noise variance σ1 and a second stream having a noise variance of σ2, the first stream is scaled by k 1 = 2 ⁢ σ 2 σ 1 2 + σ 2 2 and the second stream is scaled by k 2 = 2 ⁢ σ 1 σ 1 2 + σ 2 2 .