In this study, a space–time transmission scheme is proposed to tackle the limitations of channel estimation with orthogonal pilot information in colocated multiple‐input multiple‐output systems with several transmitting and receiving antennas. Channel information is obtained using orthogonal pilots. Channel estimation introduces pilot heads required to estimate a channel. This leads to bandwidth insufficiency. As a result, trade‐offs exist between the number of pilots required to estimate a channel versus spectral efficiency. The detection of data symbols is performed using the maximum likelihood decoding method as it provides a consistent approach to parameter estimation problems. The moment‐generating function of the instantaneous signal‐to‐noise ratio is used to drive an approximate expression of the symbol error rate for the proposed scheme. Furthermore, the order of diversity is less by one than the number of receiver antennas used in the proposed scheme. The effect of the length of a pilot sequence on the proposed scheme's performance is also investigated.