Hi Paul,
If you are using a bread board you get from Radio Shack
where you stick wires in holes you will get into all kinds
of problems BUT if you learn to build things right you can
get them to be extremely reliably and up into the gigahertz's.
I have built many high frequency projects using these
methods are have found they are reliable and fast to get
to work. Most go together in a few hours.
Regards,
Charles Bannister