Patent ID: 8630590

Claim:
A method of operating a wireless communications apparatus, comprising: sending a Request to Send (RTS) frame to a station via an omni-directional antenna; receiving a Clear to Send (CTS) frame from the station via the omni-directional antenna, said omni-directional antenna being a separate antenna from a plurality of directional antennas which receive said CTS frame or a synthesized antenna which is formed from said plurality of directional antennas which receive said CTS frame; determining at least one of received signal strength or received signal quality of the received CTS frame for each of said plurality of directional antennas; and selecting a directional antenna from said plurality of directional antennas based on the received signal strength for each of the plurality of directional antennas or the determined received signal quality for each of the plurality of directional antennas, the selected directional antenna having at least one of a highest received signal strength of the received CTS frame when said selection is based on the determined received signal strength and having the highest received signal quality when said selection is based on the determined quality of the received CTS frame.