Modified error distance decoding. In certain communication systems, multiple signals (e.g., which may be viewed as being codewords, groups/sets of bits or symbols, etc.) can be commonly affected by such deleterious phenomenon as burst noise when traversing a communication channel (e.g., from a transmitter communication device to a receiver communication device). In such instances, a test error pattern may be identified which covers those affected bits (or symbols) among at least two respective signals (e.g., all of the respective signals or any subset thereof). Various respective test error patterns may be employed, each having a different respective weight, to the desired group of signals (e.g., codewords, groups/sets of bits or symbols, etc.). As such, more than one possible estimate of each respective signal may be generated. A variety of selection operations may be employed when more than one possible estimate exists (e.g., random selection, that estimate with minimum distance, etc.).