Based on suggestions, I tried to follow using the direwolf calibration tones(-x).
For my test setup I have a C-Media USB Audio attached to a yaesu ft-817, and a kenwood tr-2500 or kenwood tm-241 connected to a ASUS Xonar U7 MKII back to the same computer to monitor how the signal looks over the air.? Note that I also ran two instances of direwolf, and I was able to communicate between them, but I have still had no luck talking to other stations.
I am looking at the received audio coming back from the kenwood radio in audacity(first program I tried), and when I look at the transmit tones, it appears that my higher frequency is way down compared to the lower frequency.? Changing the playback volume doesn't appear to solve this.? The output looks the same when normalized(which audacity seems to do automatically).
Am I looking at this correctly?