  Space-time block codes (STBCs) that are single-symbol decodable (SSD) in a
co-located multiple antenna setting need not be SSD in a distributed
cooperative communication setting. A relay network with N relays and a single
source-destination pair is called a partially-coherent relay channel (PCRC) if
the destination has perfect channel state information (CSI) of all the channels
and the relays have only the phase information of the source-to-relay channels.
In this paper, first, a new set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a
STBC to be SSD for co-located multiple antenna communication is obtained. Then,
this is extended to a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a
distributed STBC (DSTBC) to be SSD for a PCRC, by identifying the additional
conditions. Using this, several SSD DSTBCs for PCRC are identified among the
known classes of STBCs. It is proved that even if a SSD STBC for a co-located
MIMO channel does not satisfy the additional conditions for the code to be SSD
for a PCRC, single-symbol decoding of it in a PCRC gives full-diversity and
only coding gain is lost. It is shown that when a DSTBC is SSD for a PCRC, then
arbitrary coordinate interleaving of the in-phase and quadrature-phase
components of the variables does not disturb its SSD property for PCRC.
Finally, it is shown that the possibility of {\em channel phase compensation}
operation at the relay nodes using partial CSI at the relays increases the
possible rate of SSD DSTBCs from $\frac{2}{N}$ when the relays do not have CSI
to 1/2, which is independent of N.
