In this article, a decagon shaped universal compact broadband printed monopole antenna has been described which consists of a decagon shaped patch and a valley shaped notch in the partial ground plane for multiple applications, operating at frequency ranges from 3.5 GHz to greater than 100 GHz. The overall dimension of the proposed antenna is 15*20*1.5 cubic millimeter and is fabricated on commercially available low cost FR4 substrate having electrical permittivity (εr) of 4.3 and loss tangent of 0.025. The proposed antenna has some of the range for ultra‐wide band applications, Wi‐Fi, 3.5/5.5GHz WiMAX band, 5.2/5.8GHz WLAN band, 60/90 GHz E‐band military applications, 8/12 GHz X‐band, 12/18 GHz Ku ‐band, 26.5/40 GHz Ka‐band, 40/60 GHz U‐band, 50/75 GHz V‐band, 75/110 GHz W‐band,space and satellite communications etc. The impedance bandwidth (S‐parameter < 10 dB) is more than 188%, radiation efficiency is 78% and the peak gain is 7.6 dB. The simulated return losses, impedance curves, radiation efficiency, gain, surface current and radiation patterns of the proposed antenna are elaborated in this paper.© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:2760–2764, 2016