A suboptimal trellis coding approach based on the concept of combining a good convolutional code and bit interleavers is presented. The aim is to improve the reliability of digital radio communication over a fading channel. It is shown that over a Rayleigh channel and for a fixed code complexity the proposed system is superior to the baseline system. Its performance is analyzed using the generalized R/sub o/ and the upper bound on the bit error rate. The results suggest that on a Rayleigh channel, the standard trellis codes may not be the correct approach for improving the reliability of the communication channel. The discussion is restricted to a rate 2/3 coded system with 8-PSK modulation. >