this is now driving me up the wall [circuit]

[mstechca]

I went to my local library and looked through a book of circuits, and I found the following one (see attachment). I can't seem to get this circuit to pick up any TV stations. I even made the inductors 1uH each, and the variable cap between 1 and 6pF and what I got as I was tuning is 1/2 the FM broadcast band starting at about 99Mhz. I used a 3563 transistor to achieve this.

How do I get UHF? Do I have to make the inductors ridiculously small, and the variable cap ridiculously large?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

At VHF frequencies layout is critical, by the time you get to UHF layout is super-critical, coils don't even consist of turns any more! - just straight pieces of wire. The higher the frequency, the lower both the capacitance and inductance have to be - by UHF stray capacitance is a huge factor, and so is stray inductance.

It's not a project for beginners, if you want to make UHF circuits you should buy a suitable radio amateur book (ARRL or RSGB), which will contain circuits and exact constructional details.