Design and performance measures of an ultra wideband (UWB) printed dipole antenna suitable for UWB systems are presented. The proposed antenna operates in the frequency range 3.18-12.45 GHz with impedance bandwidth (VSWR < 2) of 9.27 GHz and maximum gain of 6.04 dBi. It consists of five dipole strips of different resonant length combined orthogonally for effective signal reception and better performance. The radiation pattern is nearly omnidirectional in both elevation and azimuth plane, the consistency of the radiation pattern exists for all frequency within the operating band. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.