Maximal-ratio combining (MRC), which maximizes the carrier to noise ratio (CNR) of the combined signal, generally requires envelope detection and multiplication having linear characteristic over a wide dynamic range to generate a weighting factor for each branch. In this paper, we propose a simplified two-branch diversity combining scheme without linear envelope detection. The proposed scheme, called "level comparison weighted combining (LCWC),"is simplified in a manner that its weighting factor for each branch is generated from hard-decision results of comparing signal envelopes between two branches. Performance of LCWC is evaluated by computer simulation and laboratory experiment, which shows that its diversity gain is almost identical to that of MRC in a Rayleigh fading channel.