Question: Does anybody know of a freely available program that converts
fasta / nexus / mega / phylip etc.   files to the *.rdf  files used by
the NETWORK program

Answer: Seems everybody use dnasp.  Its free;  http://www.ub.es/dnasp/
I tested it and it works.  Import your fasta (or whatever) file to dnasp
and the export  it to the  Roehl  format.

 

But even easier. You can use Network as it is if you do it correctly: 

You do not need to convert a file to the *.rdf format.  Just go directly
to the "Calculate Network: Network Calculations: Median Joining" menu
(if that's the type of analysis you want to perform).  That will open a
new window.  After that, you can go to the "File: Open" menu, which will
open a conventional Windows file dialog box.  From there, just select
the type of file you want to open using the drop-down menu at the bottom
of the dialog box.  You should see a list of different types of files
that can be directly read by the program (including nexus and phylip
files).

Thanks for all the Answers
All the best
Carina 

Carina.Schlebusch@nhls.ac.za