An improved spread spectrum communication system includes a transmitter and a receiver utilizing a pilot channel for the transmission of pure rather than modulated PN codes for code acquisition or tracking purposes with a lower bit error rate. The pilot signal is used to obtain initial system synchronization and phase tracking of the transmitted spread spectrum signal. At the transmitter side, Walsh an orthogonal code generator, a Walsh modulator, a first PN code generator, a first band spreader, a second band spreader, finite impulse response filters, digital-to-analog converter, low-pass filters, an intermediate frequency mixer, a carrier mixer, a band-pass filter are used to transmit a spread spectrum signal. At the receiver side, a corresponding band-pass filter, a carrier mixer, an intermediate-frequency mixer, low-pass filters, analog-digital converters, a second PN code generator, an I channel despreader, a Q channel despreader, a PN code synchronization controller, a Walsh an orthogonalcode generator, a first Walsh demodulator, a second Walsh demodulator, accumulator & dump circuits, a combiner, and a data decider are used to demodulate a received spread spectrum signal.