Patent ID: 7907971

Claim:
A method of operating a wireless communication device having a configurable antenna system, comprising: determining a transmission signal quality metric for a first station with the configurable antenna system in a first receiving configuration; determining a transmission signal quality metric for a second station with the configurable antenna system in the first receiving configuration; determining a transmission signal quality metric for the first station with the configurable antenna system in a second receiving configuration; determining a transmission signal quality metric for the second station with the configurable antenna system in the second receiving configuration; selecting an allowable set of antenna receiving configurations for which in each antenna receiving configuration of the allowable set the transmission signal quality metrics for the first station and second station meet a minimum criteria, wherein information transmitted by the first station and second station can be received by the configurable antenna system in the antenna receiving configurations in the allowable set; and configuring the configurable antenna system to a single antenna receiving configuration in the allowable set, wherein in this single antenna receiving configuration, the configurable antenna system can receive information from both the first station and the second station having transmission signal quality metrics that meet the minimum criteria, when the wireless communication device is not transmitting.