Among the essential aims of the European REWIND Research Program is to proceed to the algorithmic research and technology development of appropriate Mobile Multi-hop Relay networks based on the WiMAX technology, so that to increase coverage and throughput issues. The present work provides a description of the related link-level algorithms and simulations. The study performed evaluates the link-level performance of various coding and modulation schemes with different antenna configurations over several links. In particular, it studies the "backhaul channel" which is required to support the aggregate cell traffic. High-rate convolution turbo codes combined with high-order modulation schemes are employed. The performance and gains associated with multiple-antenna deployments such as MISO and MIMO techniques are evaluated.