Wireless antenna system

A method of operating a wireless antenna system for a terminal comprising an antenna structure, a first feed port for connecting to transmit and/or receive circuitry of the terminal, a second feed port for connecting to transmit and/or receive circuitry of the terminal and circuitry arranged to connect the antenna structure to the first feed port and the second feed port, wherein the antenna system is operable in a first radiation mode and a second radiation mode, the modes having different responses wherein the modes are orthogonal, the method comprising:

• mapping signals between the first feed port and the antenna structure for the first radiation mode across a first frequency band having a bandwidth which covers one of an uplink frequency band of the transmit circuitry and a downlink frequency band of the receive circuitry;
• mapping signals between the second feed port and the antenna structure for the second radiation mode across a second frequency band, wherein the second frequency band covers both of an uplink frequency band of the transmit circuitry and a downlink frequency band of the receive circuitry.

An antenna system supporting N orthogonal radiation modes being mapped to N separate external feed ports, of which a first subset of the ports is assigned to the Downlink (DL) frequency band and used for DL reception and a second subset of the ports is assigned to the Uplink (UL) frequency band and used for UL transmission, wherein the two subsets of the ports have at least one port in common.