Nonstandard coding method for nonbinary codes correcting localized errors

Summary form only given. In Ahlswede et al. (1993) we claimed that the transmission rate of a nonbinary (q-ary) code of length n which corrects /spl tau/n localized errors asymptotically equals the Hamming bound on an interval /spl tau//spl isin/ [0,/spl tau/0], /spl tau/0/spl les/1/2, and conjectured that /spl tau/0=1/2 (transmission rate is zero if the number of errors is greater than or equal to n/2). Though we have not succeeded in proving our conjecture we decided to promulgate the derivation of the incomplete result on the Hamming bound, the more so, as the method of the proof itself is of independent interest.