A wireless communication system implements Forward Error Correction ("FEC") and Interpolated Tree Orthogonal Multiplexing ("ITOM"). ITOM is a compact spectral waveform variant that uses a dyadic tree structure. The tree structure facilitates a flexible mapping of the transmit waveform to the available spectrum bandwidth on a non-contiguous and multiresolution basis. The system includes a receiver that implements a maximum likelihood ("ML") synchronization scheme, which is pulse shape independent and non-data aided.