I'd like to build a UHF (~800 MHz) FM audio transmitter. I have no experience in electrical engineering but I study physics and I'd like to acquire practical experience in electronics. In fact my goal is (almost) entirely didactical, with the purpose of self-learning.
I suppose I will need an oscillator, an FM modulator (let's say I pick the audio signal from a computer through an audio cable, and not from a microphone) and some sort of antenna. I'm asking you how to build all these elements, possibly from scratch.
I guess the biggest problem would be the oscillator, because 800 MHz is really a high frequency and even the function generator we have in the laboratory isn't capable to produce such a signal. On the other hand computers and microprocessors have oscillators in the range of gigahertzes so it should not be an impossible task, either.
If the problem of the oscillator is settled I will also need to interface it somehow with a FM modulator and get a frequency-modulated signal. I don't know how to do this but I am willing to learn
Then comes the antenna. In class we have learned about the dipole antenna, but I guess for my purposes I need another type of antennas. I'm saying this because the length of a dipole antenna should be the wavelength of the generated frequency, at least according to my textbook, and I see that the a UHF transmitter has an antenna shorter than 30 cm.
The reason I want to build a UHF transmitter is that I'd like to transmit a signal to a receiver that is already tuned to that frequency. If this reveals to be too difficult I will do something other instead.