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Assuming that you are here because you are interested in RF and electronics, I would recommend “Experimental Methods in RF Design” a book published by the ARRL which teaches major building blocks but focuses on providing practical circuits you can build.
This only deals with receiving, not transmitting, but I've heard good things about the book Build Your Own Transistor Radios: A Hobbyist's Guide to High-Performance and Low-Powered Radio Circuits.
Here's the description from Amazon:
A DIY guide to designing and building transistor radios
Create sophisticated transistor radios that are inexpensive yet highly efficient. Build Your Own Transistor Radios: A Hobbyist’s Guide to High-Performance and Low-Powered Radio Circuits offers complete projects with detailed schematics and insights on how the radios were designed. Learn how to choose components, construct the different types of radios, and troubleshoot your work. Digging deeper, this practical resource shows you how to engineer innovative devices by experimenting with and radically improving existing designs.
Build Your Own Transistor Radios covers:
• Calibration tools and test generators
• TRF, regenerative, and reflex radios
• Basic and advanced superheterodyne radios
• Coil-less and software-defined radios
• Transistor and differential-pair oscillators
• Filter and amplifier design techniques
• Sampling theory and sampling mixers
• In-phase, quadrature, and AM broadcast signals
• Resonant, detector, and AVC circuits
• Image rejection and noise analysis methods
This is the perfect guide for electronics hobbyists and students who want to delve deeper into the topic of radio.
This book is excellent: https://www.amazon.com/Technician-Class-2018-2022-Amateur-EasyWayHamBooks/dp/1985125641/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1534428563&sr=8-4&keywords=ham+radio+technician
It teaches you via a narrative with highlighted text. If you have an amazon kindle or kindle fire and prime, it may even be free to use via the kindle lending library. (the previous edition for the old test was free. I'm not sure if the new one is free). I found it toe excellent and a great value overall!
I would recommend reading Craig Buck K4IA books. Instead of giving you all of the possible answer it only gives you the correct ones which makes the answers stand out on the test, bit also includes all of this info while telling his story with ham radio. I used his technician book and I just bought his general class book. If you want more info, I'll put an Amazon link to it here --> Technician Class 2018-2022: Pass Your Amateur Radio Technician Class Test - The Easy Way (EasyWayHamBooks) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1985125641/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_bVSCEbB9WYDM8
It would be illegal for you to try and talk on the ham bands without a license and callsign. Getting your tech license is pretty easy if you take the time to study.
I used the above book to get my license and probably studied it and took all the online quizzes and passed my first try. I am also not that tech savvy and just thought it was cool so I tried it out. So much to do and learn that you can find something to do.
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The book below jumps straight into it and should be exactly what you want if you want to build it with solid-state discrete technology. The next step would be SDR/DSP and building a small RF front end (to physically receive the RF signals) and send the IQ info into a microchip for decoding a la the uSDX project on Github.
https://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Transistor-Radios-High-Performance/dp/0071799702
Yeah the ham technician test is fairly straightforward. I bought a book (see link below) and used the arrl online practice tests until I could reliably score above 90% on the practices, then scheduled a test and passed my first try.
I used that book and the ARRL online practice exams. That book only teaches the correct answer and does not include the incorrect answers so you learn to recognize the right answer. Got 34 out of 35 on my tech exam using this method.
Go and find yourself a schematic for an am radio. Build it. You'll likely use these...
Here's a book with lots of radio projects: https://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Transistor-Radios-High-Performance/dp/0071799702
I think you'll enjoy (this book) quite a bit.
It includes the delightful reminder that dirt cheap jellybean "LM318" opamps, have a gain-bandwidth product of 15 Megahertz. So you can use LM318 chips as RF amplifiers for the AM band (!!).
Check the collector current waveform of the NPN in your simulated modulator circuit. If it never exceeds about 7mA then redesigning the modulator to use an LM318 will increase your output power substantially.
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, boxed set: The New Millennium Edition
$129.04
I recommend starting out with a couple cheap vhf/uhf handhelds. These are really good for the $: https://www.ebay.com/itm/TYT-UV8000E-Dual-Band-3600mAh-10W-HP-Cross-Band-Repeater-FM-Handheld-Transceiver-/313473626608?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0
They can be used between yourself and family, friends, neighbors etc. You can also operate on the HAM repeater towers, which greatly extend the range. You do need a Technicians Class license, but they're easy to pass after a week of studying. Here is the easiest way to learn: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1985125641/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_PV7V9WJDRCWFT92964CK
Once you accomplish that, you may want to upgrade to a General Class license and drop a few $K on a shortwave radio, which can reach out all over the world.
I'm currently studying for the technician one as well. The book is sold on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/1985125641/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_DN03V5CZ676K9RW6BRD5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 Then go to arrl.org to find a testing site near you and sign up
I found this book to be incredibly educational and easy to read. He tells the story of his experience in ham radio and explains all of the concepts as he goes. At the end is every test question with only the right answers.
I've read your posting history and I now have a good understanding of your skill level. Good news: there is a really terrific book by Ronald Quan, which is aimed at people exactly like yourself. Here it is on Amazon. Among many, many other things, you'll learn the mystery-shrouded art of Dead Bug RF Construction, just like the pros.
One, I'm not attacking anyone and particularly not the youngsters. I'm trying to speed their progress. I provided plenty of directions on what they should be reading. Go up to my initial comment here. I didn't dismiss Graham completely; instead I suggested people read Zhang first for some proper framework. In particular, his approach is compatible with efficient markets so the premiums are there to be earned by everyone. (More broadly I like to live with an abundance mindset. It's not always zero sum, mi amigo, especially since we are not talking about alpha here.)
You present yourself as a thinking man and professional, but sometimes I wonder if you have a reading comprehension problem or alternatively your reading ability is fine but you are so resistant to the viewpoints of others that you fail to understand them properly before you lash out. I'm no psychologist so I will leave that to your therapist.
Second, go knock yourself out with his lectures (https://www.amazon.com/Feynman-Lectures-Physics-boxed-set/dp/0465023827/) . Not a real test since you are smarter than the average /r/investing bear but give it an honest effort and report back in a month.
I would recommend reading Craig Buck K4IA books. Instead of giving you all of the possible answer it only gives you the correct ones which makes the answers stand out on the test, bit also includes all of this info while telling his story with ham radio. I used his technician book and I just bought his general class book. If you want more info, I'll put an Amazon link to it here --> Technician Class 2018-2022: Pass Your Amateur Radio Technician Class Test - The Easy Way (EasyWayHamBooks) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1985125641/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_bVSCEbB9WYDM8
This book was pretty good: https://www.amazon.com/Technician-Class-2018-2022-Amateur-EasyWayHamBooks/dp/1985125641/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1532309507&sr=8-2&keywords=amateur+radio+technician
Also get an app for your phone that will quiz you on the test questions. The questions are all released (or they were anyway, I don't know if this is still the case since they did just release a new edition of the test), so some helpful people developed apps that let you quiz yourself, which is really helpful.
You're really going to need to start getting to electromagnetics to really understand what's going on.
If you want a general idea of what's going on, and some design guidelines, an easy ungrad level book would be RF Circuit Design by Chris Bowick: https://www.amazon.com/Circuit-Design-Second-Christopher-Bowick/dp/0750685182/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467379245&sr=8-1&keywords=chris+bowick
If you want to get a better understanding of basic EM theory, a book I'm fairly pleased with is Engineering Electromagnetics, by Nathan Ida: https://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Electromagnetics-Nathan-Ida/dp/3319078054/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467379265&sr=8-1&keywords=Nathan+Ida
I recommend the Feynman Lectures on Physics, they are very clear and reaches up to quantum theory. If you feel that you don't know enough mathematics then you can read Schaum's Outline series on Calculus, and whatever other topic you feel is stopping you.
Does anyone have any experience with the text "The Electronics of Radio" by David Rutledge?
A friend recommended it to me.