Yes we need to know more about your requirements. First, is this a half mile line of sight, or can there be obstacles, etc.
As a very general thought, 2.4GHz RF is not ideal for long range like this unless seriously amplified. Those modules based on a nrf24l01+ can do it in the variant with an added power amplifier, no way they can without this external PA. And even so, they can do it outdoors without obstacles, but will have a hard time otherwise.
Given your low throughput requirements and the distance, I would, again as a general recommendation, suggest going for a sub-GHz solution. You have cheap ICs, such as CC1101 or CMT2300A, which should work here. Alternatively, you can go for LoRa, which is much more robust and can cover much longer distances yet. LoRa chips are a bit more expensive.
Either way, if you have no prior experience with RF stuff, I'd suggest sticking to pre-made modules rather than implement the RF stage yourself on PCB - it requires some routing care for properly tuning it and is probably not worth the trouble, especially if you're not going to build a lot of these. Modules can be had for a few bucks, guaranteed to work, and some will take very little space on another PCB (like 10x15mm, something like that.)
If you're curious, you can still find schematics for some of these modules and see for yourself how they are designed.