In this letter, a novel microstrip line-fed printed monopole antenna for ultra-wideband (UWB) short-range wireless communications is proposed. The proposed antenna consists of a trapezoidal-shaped patch with two elliptical-shaped cuts from its edge forming a bell-shaped cut. Experimental results shows that the designed antenna operates over impedance bandwidth 3.2–11.4 GHz for return loss S11 < _10 dB, which almost covering the UWB frequency bandwidth. Moreover, the antenna has a good omni-directional radiation patterns in the H-plane with good gain flatness over the frequency range of interest. The antenna transmission characteristics at different receiving angles are also measured. By embedding a simple narrow U-shaped slot in the radiating microstrip patch, a notch in the frequency band of 5.0–6.0 GHz is obtained. The proposed antenna is considered a good candidate for UWB short-range wireless communication systems avoiding the interference of the existing wireless systems.