In the first part, the scattering characteristics of an isolated dielectric coated conducting rod have been investigated. The types of considered coatings for the scattering analysis are realistic materials including barium strontium titanate, magnetodielectric, gallium arsenide, and silicon carbide. It is found that the gallium arsenide coating can be used to significantly reduce the scattering from a thin perfectly electric conducting cylindrical rod at specific observation angles. In the second part, the effective permittivity and permeability of metamaterials composed of two dimensional periodic arrangements of these dielectric coated conducting cylindrical rods have been studied. An increase in the double negative (DNG) bandwidth of a metamaterial composed of barium strontium titanate coated conducting rods has been observed in contrast to the corresponding bandwidth of a metamaterial composed of only barium strontium titanate material rods. Also an additional plasmonic epsilon negative (ENG) bandwidth has been found in case of a metamaterial composed of barium strontium titanate coated conducting rods. It is further studied that the widest ENG, mu negative, and DNG bandwidths exist for a metamaterial composed of gallium arsenide rods.