Embodiments herein may operate at a cooperating relay station (CRS) in a wireless packet-carrying network (WPCN). A source-to-CRS (SC) link quality of an SC wireless channel may be estimated using signal quality information derived from a packet transmitted by a source station and received by the CRS. A CRS-to-destination (CD) link quality of a CD wireless channel may also be estimated using signal quality information derived from a packet transmitted by a destination station and received by the CRS. A source-to-destination (SD) link quality parameter representing SD link quality may be extracted by the CRS from the packet transmitted by the destination station. The CRS may decide whether to participate with the source station or with another CRS in transmitting an SD packet based upon the SC link quality, the CD link quality, the SD link quality, or a combination thereof. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.