In this paper, we evaluate the performance of pilot channel-aided channel estimation for multicarrier direct-sequence (DS) code division multiple access (CDMA) communication system as proposed by Kondo and Milstein . We consider a multicarrier DS-CDMA system with different number of pilot and data channels. We investigate the optimum number of pilot channels for various coherence bandwidths and different number of subchannels. Keeping the total transmit bandwidth fixed, an optimum number of total subchannels and pilot channels exists under specific channel environment and transmitted energy. As the number of pilot channels increases, more accurate channel estimation is possible but the number of data channels decreases resulting a smaller diversity gain. We show that there is a tradeoff between the number of pilot channels and data subchannels, thereby requiring differing numbers of optimum pilot channels according to channel conditions.