AbstractA compact mushroom‐shaped dielectric resonator antenna (MSDRA) excited by microstrip line feeding, with partial ground plane has been designed and studied theoretically as well as experimentally. The proposed antenna has been developed for world‐wide interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) applications centered at about 3.5 GHz. The total size of the antenna is 62 mm × 50 mm. The gain for the antenna is found to vary from 3 to 3.6 dBi. Parametric studies are performed to investigate the performance of the antenna. The effects of finite ground plane and radius size of mushroom (half cylindrical)‐shaped dielectric resonator on the antenna performance has been evaluated. The investigations on the S‐parameter, gain, directivity, and radiation characteristics show a fairly good agreement which justifies that the MSDRA can be well suited for Wireless communication systems. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 55:1360–1365, 2013; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.27590