Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems and antenna configurations for wideband multimode diversity rank among the emerging key technologies in next generation wireless communication systems. The analysis of such transmission systems usually neglects the influences of real antenna radiation characteristics as well as the influences of mutual coupling in a multielement antenna arrangement. Nevertheless, to achieve a detailed description of diversity gain and channel capacity by using several transmit-and receive antennas in a wireless link, it is essential to take all those effects into account. The expansion of the radiation fields in terms of spherical eigenmodes allows an analytical description of the antenna radiation characteristics and accounts for all the coupling effects in multielement antenna configurations. Therefore the radiation pattern analysis by spherical eigenmode expansion provides an efficient alternative to establish an analytical approach in the calculation of envelope correlation or channel capacity. © 2005 Copernicus GmbH.