[WriteLog] Friend.ini

DONALD A HILL aa5au at bellsouth.net
Fri Jan 8 11:52:25 PST 2010


I believe the friend.ini file on the AF4Z is the most complete file available publicly.  According to the his website, it was updated this month.

The friend.ini file is basically a text file.  You can create your file or add to Don's file.  Just open the file with a text edit and add:

callsign=name

If you create your own file (it must be named friend.ini), the only stipulation I am aware of is that you must put [HI] as the first line in the file like this:

[HI]
2E0MLR=NICK
2E0TEC=CARL
3DA0CA=JON
etc. etc. etc.

A few years ago there were some RTTY contesters sho believed the friend.ini file was a waste of their time in that they didn't want to see their name in your exchange because it made the exchange longer and they were more interested in getting to the next contact.  Although I do not use the friend.ini feature of WriteLog because my SO2R RTTY operation has been streamlined for the smallest possible buffers to get the message across and not have to make stations wait for their report on the other radio, I am in favor its use by others if they wish.

Sometimes when S&P I'll call a station and not see my callsign when they come back with a report.  But when I see my name in the report I know the report is for me and I don't have to ask for a repeat.  Although this doesn't happen a lot, it does happen enough to know that by seeing my name, there is little question the report is for me and that saves me time.

Have fun with friend.ini.  It's a great way to remember names too!  Something else you can do is to use the friend.ini file outside of contests.  Since I use WL for my everyday RTTY operation, I hate it when I see a call of a station I have worked hundreds of times in contests but can't remember their name.  It's embarrassing!  So instead of having to look the name up on QRZ.COM, I use the friend file in a buffer.

73, Don AA5AU

--- On Fri, 1/8/10, Ray Day <rayday at cox.net> wrote:

> From: Ray Day <rayday at cox.net>
> Subject: [WriteLog] Friend.ini
> To: writelog at contesting.com
> Date: Friday, January 8, 2010, 12:38 PM
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm loving Writelog and am doing more contesting now...
> 
> I have a "friend.ini" file loaded, and it works fine with
> Writelog. It's 
> from the AF4Z site. Very cool.
> 
> So here are my "newbie-to-friend.ini" questions for the
> group:
> Is there a more complete one available?
> What are you using?
> Do you add names manually?
> Is there possibly (Oh, be still, my heart...) someone who's
> devised a way 
> to "mine" contest logs like NAQP that have names in the
> exchange to add 
> them to the friend.ini file??
> 
> Thanks in advance ofr any help,
> 73,
> Ray N6HE
> 
> 
> 
> 
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