I'm back, with another problem child. Please forgive the length of this post.
Recently I picked up a Kenwood TR-7950, a very nice (1980's?) 2-meter VHF "for a song" at a thrift store. Testing it out it appeared fine, but lacked a tone board--a rather essential thing with today's repeaters.
A little research on the Net revealed the original "optional" TU-79 tone board is either outright unobtainium, or laughably expensive today. An aftermarket is available, but was $100 USD before shipping, duty to Canada, and taxes. Not happening.
What to do, what to do? So I had an idea. (This happens occasionally, and while generally considered a bad thing leading to chaos, has been known on rare occasion to have positive end results.) Arduinos are capable of generating tones down to a few Hertz. What if I MADE one instead?
The original tone board connects to the radio via a connector. Using the FLUKE A8000 multimeter, (that I repaired with the assistance of some helpful members on this forum), I mapped out a truth table of the inputs to the tone board.
The original tone board option supported 3 tones. You selected the 3 you wanted to use by snipping diodes on each of 3 "banks" of the tone board itself, before installing it. The radio then allows you to assign "Tone 1", 2, or 3 to the channel you are using or programming. The 1/2/3 selection is passed to the tone board using logic pins on the connector.
So my Arduino programming takes those inputs and similarly digests them into an actual tone frequency, and then fires up that tone on an output pin headed back to the radio. Square wave.
A little more research on the Net revealed a nifty 3-stage RC filter network to shape the square wave into a fair approximation of a sine wave.
I am happy to report that the makeshift prototype worked like a charm! I made a contact on the local repeater, and my signal was reported as good.
Feeling generally pleased with myself, I programmed another Arduino Nano (without pin headers), wired it up with solder this time, and installed it and the filter into the radio where the original TU-79 would have gone.
It doesn't work.
It doesn't work, and I can't figure out why. The waveform going into the radio looks just as it had before, nice and clean. Connecting the Arduino back to my PC for the Serial Monitor feature so I can monitor diagnostic messages, the logic of the Arduino program appears to operating perfectly, and the correct tone is being sent.
A second radio confirms my transmission is going out. Yet all the neighborhood repeaters are elevating their noses in the opposite direction. How rude.
If RF was somehow interfering with the Arduino, I'd expect to see a compromised signal on the scope. I've tried adjusting the amplitude with a shunt resistor. Nothin'. If it's not amplitude, frequency, or phase (which shouldn't matter here), then what is it?
Why did the prototype wiring work well, and the "permanent" installation not? I can't help thinking I'm going to be dreadfully embarrassed when I find out the answer.
Any ideas?