Parts Shopping!

Get all the parts together that you'll need. This includes making the PCB.

As the completed  radio board is designed to be in a stack with other boards, you need to think about the height of the connectors for the top and bottom of the board. The connectors come in several height options.You'll need to look at the datasheet, and work out what height is right for you.

Assembly

All the parts need to be soldered to the board. You may want to reflow the backplane connector, then solder the radio module and SMA connector by hand. Or just hand solder it all. Up to you.

Connect Antenna

Some radios can be damaged if they are operated without an antenna. Make sure that you have either connected an antenna, or connected a dummy load to simulate an antenna

Get  you Amateur Radio License!

Just about everywhere you are in the world, there are rules about operating radio equipment. Given the power output of this device, you will more than likely need to have an Amateur Radio (HAM) License to legally operate it.

Test

Testing can be done a variety of ways. Apart from the usual power checks, you'll need to load some basic test code into your MCU so it can tell the radio to transmit something.

You can use an SDR dongle to look at the waterfall plot of the test frequency. Just tune the software to the frequency you have specified in your test program and make sure it is indeed transmitting at the correct frequency that you had programmed, as well as the modulation method you specified.

Program something awesome!

This project is just for the radio module. Give it some useful data to send!