The present invention provides a method for transmitting a pilot signal, a base station, and user equipment The method including: determining, by a base station, a transmission period of a pilot antenna port group; and sending, by the base station, in a transmission period corresponding to each pilot antenna port group, a pilot signal to user equipment by using a resource corresponding to the pilot antenna port group, so that the user equipment measures channel quality according to the pilot signal. By means of the technical solutions provided in the embodiments of the present invention, pilot signal overheads can be reduced.