Patent ID: 7239894

Claim:
In an antenna device that includes an omni-directional antenna and at least one directional antenna, a method for reducing effects associated with propagation loss including reduced data rate exchange, data unreliability, or loss of data, in order to receive data from a wireless device in a power efficient manner, the method comprising: an act of receiving at an omni-directional antenna a data notification signal from a wireless device, which is control data indicating that a wireless device has program data to transmit to an antenna device that includes both the omni-directional antenna and at least one directional antenna, both of which are configured to receive program data, control data, or both, from a wireless device; based on the received data notification signal, an act of determining that the wireless device has program data to send to the antenna device, wherein the program data requires higher signal strength for reliable transfer than control type data; an act of determining that the wireless device is likely unable to reliably send program data to the antenna device through the omni-directional antenna due to limited signal strength with the omni-directional antenna caused by limited range of the omni-directional antenna, physical barriers between the omni-directional antenna and the wireless device, or both; and based on the determination that the wireless device is likely unable to reliably send the program data to the antenna device through the omni-directional antenna, an act of using the at least one directional antenna to receive program data from the wireless device for transfer to the antenna device in response to having received the data notification signal.