Patent ID: 8050361

Claim:
A device for receiving a first and second encoded standard coded rate (SCR) bitstreams over a first and second transmission channels, respectively, in a communication system, the device comprising: a RF receiver configured to receive the first and second encoded SCR bitstreams transmitted over the first and second transmission channels, respectively, wherein the first and second encoded SCR bitstreams are a first portion and a second portion of a lower coded rate (LCR) bitstream, and wherein the first encoded SCR bitstream is received from a first sector and the second encoded SCR bitstream is received from a second sector, and wherein the device is a remote station and the first and second transmission channels are between the remote station and two separate base stations, each base station having a base station identifier; and a multiplexer configured to assemble the lower coded rate (LCR) bitstream from the first and second encoded SCR bitstreams, wherein the first SCR bitstream comprises odd bits and the second SCR bitstream comprises even bits and the remote station is configured to use a lowest valued base station identifier to determine the order to combine the odd and even bits from the two base stations.