Low-density parity check codes over GF(q)

Gallager´s (1962) low-density binary parity check codes have been shown to have near-Shannon limit performance when decoded using a probabilistic decoding algorithm. We report the empirical results of error-correction using the analogous codes over GF(q) for q>2, with binary symmetric channels and binary Gaussian channels. We find a significant improvement over the performance of the binary codes, including a rate 1/4 code with bit error probability <10/sup -5/ at E/sub b//N/sub 0/=0.2 dB.