The described technology is generally directed towards having a transmitter in a wireless network generate and map reference signal sequences (e.g., for demodulation or other reference signal usage) so that the reference signal sequences are non-repetitive in a resource block. Avoiding repetition of the reference signal sequences reduces the peak-to-average power ratio in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. In one aspect, a transmitter device generates different reference signal sequences to avoid repetition of resource signal sequences, and maps the different reference signal sequences to appropriate (different) resource elements of a resource block. In one implementation, the different reference signal sequences can be based on different indexes of antenna ports. In an alternative implementation, the different reference signal sequences can be based on different code division multiplexing groups.