How To Use & Control EchoLink Favorites

If you want to get started quickly, you may download the master FRUPAC EchoLink favorite file and either replace your favorite.txt file or copy and paste the contents of the master into your file.

If you left-click the link, the file will display in your browser where you can copy and paste its contents into your favorite.txt file located in your “My Documents\Echolink” folder. You may also right-click on the link and select “Save Target As…” and thereby download the file to your computer where you may e-mail it to a friend or rename it favorite.txt and replace your original file.

How to See Your Favorites!

1. EchoLink favorites list requires you to use the Station List “Explorer View.”
2. Two different “views” of the Station List are available: Index View and Explorer View. You can switch from one view to the other at any time by selecting one of the tabs at the bottom of the Station List.
3. Although both views display the same list of logged-on stations, Index View shows the stations as a single list, whereas Explorer View organizes the stations into various folders and sub-folders, similar to Microsoft Windows Explorer. Many operators will prefer Explorer View, particularly when many stations are logged on at once.
4. In Explorer View, all logged-on stations are displayed within each of several groups of folders and sub-folders. This presentation is familiar to users of Microsoft Windows Explorer, although the information displayed is stations, rather than files.
5. Many of the folders contain sub-folders. To see the list of sub-folders, click the small plus sign to the left of the folder list on the left-hand side. If you double-click on a folder, its contents are displayed on the right-hand side. A folder can contain stations, sub-folders, or a combination of both. The number in parentheses after a folder name indicates the total number of stations it contains, including those in any sub-folders.
6. Within each folder, stations are listed alphabetically. An icon indicates whether the station is a repeater link, simplex link, conference server, or user. Busy stations are shown in blue. Moving the mouse over a station's name displays additional information about the station.
7. Select the “Favorites” folder.

Favorites

This folder contains stations that you have placed into it for future reference. This makes it easy to locate certain “favorite” stations, even when many stations are logged on. You can create your own sub-folders in Favorites such as FRUPAC to organize stations into groups. You can also have each new QSO added to Favorites automatically; see Preferences.

Adding Stations to Alarms or Favorites

You can add a station to Alarms or Favorites in several ways:

• Right-click the station’s callsign (in any other folder), and choose Add to Alarms or Add to Favorites. If the station is already in either of these folders, the corresponding choice will be dimmed.
• Use the mouse to “drag” a station (or several stations) from a list on the right-hand side into the Favorites or Alarms folders on the left-hand side, then release the mouse button to “drop” it. You can also drag and drop an entire folder, to add many stations at once. Dropping a folder to Alarms causes all of its stations to be added to Alarms, whereas dropping a folder to Favorites copies the folder(s) themselves to Favorites.
• Use Copy-and-Paste. These choices are available either from the Edit menu, or by right-clicking the mouse.
• Open the Alarms or Favorites folder, right-click anywhere in the right-hand side, choose New, and type the callsign of a station. This is a way to add a station that may not be currently logged on.
• Choose Alarms from the Tools menu to add a station manually to the Alarms list.
• Your Favorites are stored in a text file "favorite.txt" in your “My Documents\Echolink” directory. You may edit this file directly if you wish by using simple text editors such as Notepad, WordPad, or UltraEdit32. Don't worry about sorting the information, EchoLink will sort the contents of the file when it accesses the file.

The default location: C:\Program Files\K1RFD\EchoLink.

Structure of “favorite.txt”

Stations are listed in Favorites by Call Sign only. Stations listed in Sub Folders are listed by the sub-folder name / Call Sign. Each station occupies a single line.

Sub-folder

Example of a plain favorite.txt file without a sub-folder.

• K0RAR
• N1FFO
• WB0ATT

No Sub-folder

Example of a favorite.txt file with a sub-folder:

• FRUPAC/
• FRUPAC/AD4IH
• FRUPAC/AH6HH
• FRUPAC/K0RAR
• FRUPAC/K3APM
• K0RAR
• N1FFO
• W1GBS
• WB0ATT

Note: A station’s call sign may appear in more than one folder (e.g., FRUPAC/K0RAR & K0RAR).