that are usually physically separated by some (often short) distance. Collectively they are capable of discriminating a large portion of angle space and can provide a higher gain versus a single omnidirectional radiator. Polarization diversity combines pairs of antennas with orthogonal polarizations (i.e. horizontal/vertical, ± slant 45°, Left-hand/Right-hand circular polarization etc.). Reflected signals can undergo polarization changes depending on the medium through which they are traveling. A polarization difference of 90° will result in an attenuation factor of up to 34 dB in signal strength. By pairing two complementary polarizations, this scheme can immunize a system from polarization mismatches that would otherwise cause signal fade. Additionally, such diversity has proven valuable at radio and mobile communication base stations since it is less susceptible to the near random orientations of transmitting antennas. Transmit/Receive diversity uses two separate, colocated antennas for transmit and receive functions. Such a configuration eliminates the need for a duplexer and can protect sensitive receiver components from the high power used in transmit. Adaptive arrays can be a single antenna with active elements or an array of similar antennas with ability to change their combined radiation pattern as different conditions persist. Active electronically scanned arrays (AESAs) manipulate phase shifters and attenuators at the face of each radiating site to provide a near instantaneous scan ability as well as pattern and polarization control. This is especially beneficial for radar applications since it affords a single antenna the ability to switch among several different modes such as searching, tracking, mapping and jamming countermeasures. Processing Techniques All of the above techniques require some sort of post processing to recover the desired message. Among these techniques are: Switching: In a switching receiver, the signal from only one antenna is fed to the receiver for as long as the quality of that signal remains above some prescribed threshold. If and when the signal degrades, another antenna is switched in. Switching is the easiest and least power consuming of the antenna diversity processing techniques but periods of fading and desynchronization may occur while the quality of one antenna degrades and another antenna link is established. Selecting: As with switching, selection processing presents only one antenna's signal to the receiver at any given time. The antenna chosen, however, is based on the best signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) among the received signals. This requires that a pre-measurement take place and that all antennas have established connections (at