An apparatus and a method for detecting data transmitted over a wireless channel are disclosed. For example, for each receive antenna of a plurality of receive antennas, the method converts, by an ADC, an analog signal received by the receive antenna to a respective digital signal, and for each receive antenna of the plurality of receive antennas, the method channel transforms, by a channel transformer, the digital signal to determine a respective equivalent integer representation of the digital signal, and the method detects data by receive combining, by a receive combiner, the respective equivalent integer representations of the digital signals determined for the plurality of receive antennas.