In this paper, multiband, printed microstrip-feed monopole antennas using slot elements are proposed. First, an antenna with a dome shaped slot and a blended rectangular shaped patch is designed. The antenna is characterized by an operating frequency band $$(\hbox {S}_{11} < -10\,\hbox {dB})$$(S11<-10dB) from 2.2 to 12.9 GHz. Next, dual and triple-band antenna configurations are obtained by slightly changing some of the dimensions and adding thin $$\lambda /4$$?/4 length metallic strips to the ground plane of the basic design. Resonance of these metallic strips introduces the additional bands at the lower end. The dual band antenna operates from 2.2 to 2.4 and 3 to 13 GHz. The triple-band antenna operates from 2.2 to 2.4, 2.8 to 3.3 and 3.55 to 11.6 GHz. The first antenna is suitable for all the Bluetooth, worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), wireless local area network (WLAN) and ultra wide band (UWB) applications, whereas the second antenna is suitable for 2.3 GHz WiMAX in addition to UWB applications. The third antenna is suitable for 2.3/3.3 GHz WiMAX, 5.15/5.5 GHz WLAN and UWB applications. All the proposed antennas have simple geometry and radiation patterns which are nearly Omni directional in H-plane and dumbbell shaped in E-plane. The simulated and measured results are in good agreement.