Know of any inexpensive UHF RFID reader modules?
THe evaluation kits are more expensive because of the development costs and $100K test equipment costs.  The component costs are not high in volume production, if you know what to do.  

http://media.digikey.com/Photos/STMicro%20Photos/STEVAL-TDR017V1.jpg  How about this one.  If you need one.. make an investment on your future. Education is not cheap. Otherwise, make a cheap Tx and try to use your TV tuner as an Rx but when it comes to erro rates for detection and interference robustness, you need a great receiver/transmitter for zero error rates.

and score accordingly. :)