The present disclosure relates to a radio receiver, a radio transmitter, and methods for evaluating receive and transmit antenna patterns of directive payload antennas. The method for evaluating receive antenna patterns of a directive payload antenna comprises the step of steering a probing signal receive pattern of a steerable receive pattern antenna according to a pre-determined sequence of probing signal receive patterns, and receiving a probing signal via the steerable receive pattern antenna, as well as determining a probing signal quality value from the received probing signal as a function of the pre-determined sequence of probing signal receive patterns.