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FOX VHF radio setup

FOX is a VHF radio communicator. A single base receiver listens on a radio channel and picks up the signals of many field radios — one radio per monitored site. Every radio transmits a unique account code, and that account code is what tells CleverCam which site an incoming alarm belongs to.

So FOX is set up in two parts:

  1. The base receiver — created once in Settings → Alarm Receivers for your control room (this is the radio hardware that feeds signals into CleverCam). It is monitor-only: you receive events, you do not control the panel.
  2. Each site's radio — added to the site by its account code, from the site's Add hub flow.
Monitor-only

FOX radios are one-way — CleverCam receives their alarm signals but cannot arm, disarm, or send commands back. A FOX hub appears as a monitor-only communicator on the site.

The base receiver​

The FOX base receiver is created in Settings → Alarm Receivers (click Add, pick FOX VHF (Radio Base Receiver), give it a label such as FOX Channel 2). You normally only need one receiver per radio channel — every site's radio on that channel shares it.

Once it is receiving, the receiver row shows a rising Webhooks count and a Last Webhook time.

Adding a radio to a site​

Each customer site with a FOX radio is linked by entering that radio's account code:

  1. Open the site (Sites → View Site, or click a site from any Site column) and find the Hubs & cameras section on the Hardware tab.
  2. Click Add hub.
  3. In the picker, choose the FOX receiver tile (it shows the receiver's label, e.g. FOX Channel 2, with FOX VHF (Radio Base Receiver) underneath).
  4. The TX number step opens for that line. Type the radio's TX number (account code) — CleverOps checks every receiver line on the control room for it (as typed and zero-padded to the line's rule), so a radio already heard on this channel or another comes up to pick. Click Continue with <code>, or Continue without a TX number to pick from the list on the next step. See Adding an alarm panel by TX number.
  5. The Add Alarm Panel dialog opens with the code already in its TX number (account code) field. Either keep it, or pick the radio from the "Already reporting to this receiver" list (see below). Optionally add a friendly name (e.g. 12 Oak Street) — left blank, the radio is simply named FOX.
  6. Choose how many zones and partitions to pre-create — the defaults (16 zones, 1 partition) suit most sites. See Pre-creating zones and partitions below.
  7. Click Add Panel.

The radio is now linked to the site. From this point, any inbound FOX signal carrying that account code raises an event on this site.

Picking a radio that is already transmitting​

The base receiver records every account code it hears, whether or not that radio has been linked to a site yet. The Add Alarm Panel dialog shows those unlinked codes in an Already reporting to this receiver list, so on most installs you never type an account code at all.

  • The list is searchable — type any part of an account code or label to filter it.
  • Rows are ordered most-recent signal first, and each row shows when that radio last transmitted plus how many of its signals are currently unrouted (waiting for a site link).
  • Picking a row fills in the account code for you, which removes the commonest cause of a dead site: a mistyped code.

If the receiver hasn't heard anything yet, the dialog says so and you enter the code by hand.

TX number (account code) = the routing key

The account code you enter is stored as the hub's serial against the FOX receiver. Inbound signals are matched on it (case-insensitively), so enter it exactly as the radio is programmed — a mismatch silently drops that site's signals (they reach the base receiver but never link to the site).

Two checks run as you type an account code manually:

  • Length — the dialog shows the expected length for the communicator (FOX account codes are 4 digits) and warns if you've typed a different length, for example a stray leading zero (06681 instead of 6681).
  • Identity — the dialog tells you whether this receiver has heard that code before. You'll see one of: already transmitting to this receiver (with its last-signal time), already linked to a named site (a warning — adding it here moves the radio off that site), or no signals from this code yet.

Both are guides, not hard blocks. If events for a site aren't arriving, check that the account code here matches the one on the radio.

Pre-creating zones and partitions​

A FOX radio never tells CleverCam how many zones or partitions it has — it just sends an alarm on a zone/partition number when something happens. So that a freshly-linked site doesn't start with an empty zone list, the Add Alarm Panel dialog lets you seed the site's zone structure up front:

  • Zones to create — 8, 16 (default), 24, 32, or Custom (any number). Creates Zone 1 … Zone N.
  • Partitions to create — 1 (default), 2, 4, 8, or Custom. Most radio sites are a single partition; add more only if the site arms as independent areas.

The zones and partitions appear immediately under the site's Hardware → Zone structure, named Zone 1, Zone 2, and so on. With one partition, every pre-created zone is placed under it straight away (in CleverAlert's Devices tab too). With two or more, the zones start out unassigned — CleverCam cannot know which area a zone belongs to until the radio reports it, and the first signal that names a partition files the zone under it. You can rename them, set each zone's type, and move zones between partitions just like any panel zone. When a real signal later arrives on a zone number, it lands on the matching pre-created zone — there are no duplicates.

A head start, not a commitment

Pre-creating is just a convenience. You can add, rename, retype, or remove zones and partitions at any time from the site's Hardware tab — and any zone number the radio reports that you didn't pre-create is still created automatically on its first signal.

Re-running is safe

Adding the same radio again, or coming back with a higher count, never deletes anything — it only fills in the missing numbers.

Telemetry inputs (TELE 1–5)​

Most FOX radios have a handful of hardwired telemetry terminals — TELE 1 to TELE 5 — that an installer can wire to anything on site: a gate contact, an electric fence energiser, a separate panic button, a tank float, and so on. The radio reports each one on its own signal, but what that input means is decided per site — so you tell CleverCam by adding it as a site zone.

Once a site's FOX radio is linked (above), add its inputs from the site's Hardware tab, in the Zone structure section:

  1. On the site's Hardware tab, scroll to Zone structure.
  2. Click + Add TELE input. (This button only appears once the site has a FOX or RDC radio linked.)
  3. In the Add telemetry input dialog:
    • Radio — if the site has more than one radio, pick which one.
    • Input — choose TELE 1–TELE 5 (each is shown with the signal code it arrives on). Inputs already mapped are greyed out.
    • Label — what this input is, e.g. Front gate or Pump room fence.
    • Type — the zone type (Panic, Duress, Motion, Door, Tamper, Medical, General…), used for the icon and classification.
    • Behaviour — choose how signals on this input are handled:
      • Event — raises a normal operator event (and customer push), like any other alarm zone.
      • Silent log — the signal is written to the event log for history, but no operator event is raised and no customer push is sent. Use this for inputs you want a record of but don't want to alarm on (e.g. a gate that opens all day).
      • Reports an open / Reports a close — for an input wired to the alarm panel's arm output. Each signal is recorded as the zone's partition opening (disarmed) or closing (armed) instead of an alarm. After adding the input, move it into the partition it reports for; left unassigned, it reports for the whole site.
  4. Click Add input.

The input now appears in the zone table under the Telemetry inputs (TELE 1–8) group, with the Zone # column reading TELE 1, TELE 2, and so on. You can rename it, change its type, or move it between partitions just like any other zone, and change its behaviour later with the Behaviour picker under its type. See Telemetry inputs.

Silent log keeps the history

A Silent log input still records every signal — it just doesn't page an operator or push the customer. The events are there in the site's history if you ever need to review them.

Why a separate range

Telemetry inputs are stored in a reserved zone-number range that sits above the normal panel-zone range, so a TELE input can never collide with a real panel zone on the same radio — there is no "two zone 1s" problem.