AbstractIn this paper, the expressions for calculating the bit error rate (BER) performance of noncoherent frequency‐hopped M‐ary frequency‐shift‐keying (NC‐FH/MFSK) receiver, subjected to independent multitone jamming (IMTJ) and partial‐band jamming (PBJ), are derived. We observe that the the jamming tones in IMTJ strategy are, in fact, equivalent to the cochannel interferences in the network of IEEE 802.11 NC‐FH/MFSK devices. Also, the major source of interference from outside of such network (coexisting network interference) is the IEEE 802.11 a/b/g devices whose signal is very similar to that of the jammer in PBJ strategy. Therefore, we combine the expressions for IMTJ and PBJ together and create a new combined‐jamming formula for determining the link performance in IEEE 802.11 NC‐FH/MFSK networks. As an example, we also illustrate the application of the new formula on the channel assignment (CA) problem in multiradio NC‐FH/MFSK wireless mesh networks. Because the combined‐jamming formula can take into account both the cochannel interference and the outside interference, it can predict fairly accurate BERs for determining appropriate channels in the network. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.