An apparatus and method for providing sounding channel based feedback in an OFDM communication system includes a first step (400) of defining a sounding channel spread out over multiple OFDM symbols within a frame. A next step (402) includes conveying a message to a subscriber station including information about the sounding channel. A next step (404) includes requesting a sounding waveform from the subscriber station. A next step (408) includes sending the sounding waveform from the subscriber station over the multiple OFDM symbols. A next step (410) includes sending a downlink transmission weighted in response to the sounding waveform.