We present a low-density parity-check (LDPC)-based, threaded layered space-time-frequency system with emphasis on the iterative receiver design. First, the unbiased minimum mean-squared-error iterative-tree-search (U-MMSE-ITS) detector, which is known to be one of the most efficient multi-input multi-output (MIMO) detectors available, is improved by augmentation of the partial-length paths and by the addition of one-bit complement sequences. Compared with the U-MMSE-ITS detector, the improved detector provides better detection performance with lower complexity. Furthermore, the improved detector is robust to arbitrary MIMO channels and to any antenna configurations. Second, based on the structure of the iterative receiver, we present a low-complexity belief-propagation (BP) decoding algorithm for LDPC-codes. This BP decoder not only has low computing complexity but also converges very fast (5 iterations is sufficient). With the efficient receiver employing the improved detector and the low-complexity BP decoder, the proposed system is a promising solution to high-data-rate transmission over selective-fading channels.