Embodiments of an access point (AP), station (STA) and method of communication are generally described herein. The STA may determine a portion of a channel occupied by an incumbent device. The STA may refrain from communication in a first subset of resource units (RUs) that overlap the portion of the channel occupied by the incumbent device. The STA may determine a combined RU that comprises two or more RUs of a second subset of RUs that do not overlap the portion of the channel occupied by the incumbent device. The STA may encode a physical layer convergence procedure protocol data unit (PPDU) for transmission in the combined RU. The PPDU may be encoded in accordance with joint coding across the RUs of the combined RU.