A method for operating a base station includes receiving an uplink signal from a user equipment (UE), wherein the uplink signal includes a precoding matrix indicator (PMI) associated with a first precoder index of a codebook determined by a first and a second precoder indices, and a channel quality indicator (CQI). The method includes applying an open-loop diversity operation to at least one data stream including quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) symbols to generate N_B signal streams and applying a precoding matrix to the N_B signal streams to generate a larger number of N_TX data streams to be transmitted via a plurality of antennas.