A new design mechanism has been explored to realise a single higher mode driven wideband dielectric resonator antenna (DRA). It targets an aperture coupled cylindrical DRA to operate in HEM11δ mode, which indeed is a first-order repetitive form of HEM11δ mode. Innovative engineering has been realised on the DRA body as a mode-filtering technique to maintain the modal purity and hence, the radiation uniformity. A C-band prototype has been experimentally verified indicating as much as 24% impedance bandwidth with 8.5 dBi maximum gain. This design appears commercially viable and superior to the earlier, higher mode based developments, especially in terms of gain, but without involving any additional cost, weight, or design complexity. © 2020 Institution of Engineering and Technology. All rights reserved.