FOXPRO, Inc. - High Performance Game Calls.

The FOXPRO programming utility is not compatible with Macintosh based computers. Most Mac users will, however, find that programming their FOXPRO game call is not too difficult. Instead of having the utility perform file storage, migrating, and naming routines, you just make those changes manually with your keyboard and mouse.

Users with an understanding of basic computer operations can quickly see that programming your FOXPRO game call can be very simple. The process is going to be virtually identical to manually programming your game call from a Windows PC.

Connecting the FOXPRO to the Mac

Your FOXPRO game call features a standard USB 2.0 interface port. You can use a standard USB type A/B interface cable to connect the game call to an available USB port on your computer (if necessary, look in the printed documentation that came with your computer to locate a USB port).

On FOXPRO models XR6, FX3, FX5, NX3, Prairie Blaster, Firestorm, and Fury GX7 the USB port is located in the battery compartment. Remove the battery compartment door and pull out the batteries. You should be able to clearly identify the USB port.

On FOXPRO Snow-Crow-Pro models the USB port is clearly labeled and accessible by opening up the top of the case and looking on the main panel.

On the FOXPRO Scorpion X1B and OCC you will find the USB port inside of the main unit, clearly labeled.

FOXPRO models Spitfire and Scorpion X1B both feature removable micro-SD cards which must be connected to a USB card reader/writer and then connected to your computer.

Make sure that your FOXPRO game call is turned OFF before connecting it to your computer. Connecting a unit that is powered on to your USB port could result in file or data loss on the unit.

Upon successfully connecting your game call to your computer, you should see a new icon appear on the desktop. The icon will display the model and serial number of the unit you have connected.

If an icon does not appear, you may need to access the game call through the Mac Finder. Open up Finder and take a look at the sidebar. You should see a section titled "Devices" which will show your hard disk drive. Look through the list and you should be able to locate the unit you have connected.

Accessing the FOXPRO

Whether you access the game call from your desktop or through Finder, you can now open it up to take a look at the contents of the unit. From your desktop, position your mouse pointer above the icon and double click. From Finder, click on the unit under the "Devices" section on the left.

After you have opened the unit you will see the contents. You should notice all of the sound numbers and descriptions.

Remember how to access your FOXPRO game call as this will become an important step later. For now, close the screen and proceed on to the next section.

How File Naming Works in your FOXPRO digital game call

Before we dive into the steps on how to program your game call we should take a look at the file system inside of the unit. Once you understand this part of the unit, everything should fall right into place.

Like any device that digitally stores data, your FOXPRO game call has its own system for file storage, naming, and access. File naming is the most important aspect that you need to understand in order to properly program your unit manually. Here is an example of a file name and how it will show up on your game call:

000 Coyote Locator.FXP

At a quick glance, you can clearly see that the file name has three main parts. The first part is the three digit ID number, followed by the description, and finally the extension.

Sound Position ID Number

The first part of the file name is the sound position ID number. In the example above, the ID number is 000. This number represents the most important factor of the file name. This number tells the unit what position or spot this number should appear in. When you access the sound on your remote control, sound 000 corresponds to the sound in the unit that has the sound position ID number of 000.

The numbering system on all FOXPRO game calls will begin with 000. Below, you will find a chart that will outline the possible number ranges for all FOXPRO game calls. Obviously, placing a three digit ID number at the beginning of a file name that is not within the range accessible by your particular game call will result in no sound. Make sure that you always choose valid numbers within the range as noted for your particular game call.

UNIT	START	END
XR6	000	015
Spitfire	000	023
FX3	000	031
Snow-Crow-Pro (SC3)	000	031
FX5	000	199
Snow-Crow-Pro (SC5)	000	199
Scorpion X1-A	000	199
NX3	000	199
Scorpion X1B	000	199
Firestorm	000	199
Prairie Blaster	000	499
Fury GX7	000	499
CS-24	000	499
Snow-Crow Pro 2	000	499

As you can clearly see above, certain units can only accept a certain number of sounds. Make sure that you always stay within the range as allowed by your particular game call. Failure to adhere to this can result in no sound being played on that position.

At the same importance of maintaining a number within the ranges defined above is the importance of not even having a number. Indiscriminately copying sounds bearing their original FOXPRO library ID number or a just a random file name into your game call will not work. Copying sounds into your game call with no sound position ID number will result in no sound. It must be present.

Make sure that you never have the same sound position ID number occur in your game call twice. For example you cannot have the following two sounds loaded to your game call:

000 Coyote Locator.FXP
000 Coyote Death Cry.FXP

This will result in neither of the sounds being played. You can only have one instance of each sound position ID number loaded within the FOXPRO game call. A lot of folks will renumber new sounds on the hard drive, copy them into the game call, but fail to remove the original sounds that had already been named with the same sound position ID number. Always check to make sure each number appears once.

Description or Title

The second part to the file name is the title or description. You will notice that the sound position ID number and the description/title have a space in between them. It absolutely critical that you always double-check to make sure this space is present. Failure to maintain that blank space will result in no sound being played.

The sound title or description is often times left as the original description as found in the FOXPRO sound library. If you are using your own personal sound to program into your unit, keep in mind the limitations on the amount of text available. You can have up to a maximum of 17 characters for the file title/description portion of the file name. Running over the 17 characters may result in the file name being truncated off towards the end (on both the labels and TX-200 readouts), but should not adversely affect the playback.

You should always try to limit the file name to text and numbers only. Try to avoid "special" characters like the following: ! @ $ % ^ * ( ) : ; \ / [ ]

Extension

Immediately following the description/title is the extension. This may be different on some computers. Some computers may be set up to hide the extensions for all file types. This means that the only thing you will see is the sound position ID number and the description/title. This is isn't a problem, but you must remember that:

If you are unable to see the extension of the file, never add another extension to make it "look" right.

Basically, if all you see is:

000 Coyote Locator

Don't go in there and add an ".mp3" to the end just so it "looks right". Doing so will actually negate any goal that you were trying to achieve by confusing the game call. Although doing this will make your screen show:

000 Coyote Locator.FXP

Your game call is actually going to see:

000 Coyote Locator.FXP.FXP

To reiterate, if you cannot see the extension of the file name, never add it in hopes of making it appear correct as it is probably already just fine.

If your computer does not hide file extensions, you will see the entire file name including the extension every time you look at it.

The extension is a three character combination that tells the operating system what kind of file it is so that it knows what application or program to associate with that file. For example, if you have a bunch of MP3's on your computer, every time you open up one of those files it may automatically launch certain MP3 playing software. Your operating system knows that the MP3 extension is associated with that particular piece of software so it becomes associated with it.

The FXP file extension will not be recognized by any computer. The FXP file type is our proprietary file that has no "helper" program associated with it. In most circumstances, when you try to open a FXP file, your computer will get confused and prompt you for a program to associate with it. You should not associate any program with the FXP files.

Never change a file extension! If you have a WMA file (which is not compatible with your FOXPRO game call) and change the extension to MP3, it does not turn that file into an MP3 file. It is still a WMA file with the wrong extension. Changing the extension will result in the file being rendered useless unless it is the correct one.

Compatible File Types

There are many unique ways to store digital audio in compatible formats for playback on various types of audio equipment. Your FOXPRO game call is capable of handling three types of file formats. Those formats are: MP3, uncompressed WAV, and FXP. The Fury GX7 is capable of playing .24B files as well. .24B files are FOXPRO's proprietary 24-bit audio files.

You may encounter some file types that are WMA, RA, AIF, and so on. Please note that if the type of file is not one of the three above mentioned types that it will NOT work with your FOXPRO game call. The file would first need to be converted into a compatible type with a special audio converting software-something that you will not find instructions for in this manual.

.fxp files are in the FOXPRO proprietary sound format. These files are created by applying a special audio CODEC that allows for high-quality sounds that can only be played on FOXPRO game calls. Unlike .mp3 or .wav files, .fxp files cannot be listened to on your PC.

Establishing a Central Loading Point

While working with larger numbers of files, organization is going to play a key role in this process. It is a good idea to maintain a single folder that houses all of your sounds. This will be the easiest and most convenient way to organize your sounds. It makes the overall programming process that much easier.

Making a New Folder

Open Finder or any disk or folder window and locate and select the location where you want to make your new folder. Some folks may place it right on their desktop, while others may have a folder elsewhere in the file system.

You may be able to use the keyboard shortcut of holding the command (Apple) key and pressing the letter N. Otherwise, you should be able to access the file menu and click on New then choose Folder.

After doing this, a new unnamed folder should appear. You will need to give this folder a name by typing the name into the text box provided. If you cannot immediately type in the name, you need to click on the text beneath the icon and then press the enter button. You should now be able to type in the name.

Make sure you name the folder in a manner that will be easy to remember and identify. Also make sure you place in a spot that is easy to navigate to.

Backing up Your Sounds

From your desktop or through Finder, open up the icon for your FOXPRO game call. Highlight all of the sound files. You may be able to highlight all the files by using the keyboard shortcut of pressing command (Apple) and pressing the letter A. You can also accomplish this by accessing the Edit menu and choosing Select All. If all fails, use your mouse to highlight all of the files.

At this point you need to copy the sounds into the new folder you made previously. To do this you can press the command (Apple) key and the letter C at the same time. You could also access the Edit menu and choose Copy. You won't see anything happen as the files are being copied to a virtual "clipboard" of sorts.

You can now go into the new folder and press the command (Apple) key and the letter V to paste them into the folder or you can access the Edit menu and choose Paste.

You don't want to simply drag and drop the sounds from the FOXPRO into the folder as this will act to move all the sounds as opposed to copying them.

After this process is complete, a copy of all your sounds from your game call will now appear in the selected destination in your named folder.

Programming Your FOXPRO Game Call

You may need to reference the earlier section that discussed how file naming works within your FOXPRO game call. If you understand that process inside and out, programming will be very simple.

Connect your game call to your computer. You can then access it through the icon on the desktop or through Finder. Open it to display the contents. For this example, we'll say that you have the following five sounds programmed into your unit:

000 Coyote Locator.FXP
001 Coyote Male Challenge.FXP
002 Cottontail Distress.FXP
003 Jackrabbit Distress.FXP
004 Rodent Distress.FXP

Let's say that on your computer you have a few of your own sounds and they are as follows:

mySound04.mp3

yhwoodpecker.wav

Imagine that you want to load the woodpecker sound at the end of the small list of sounds above. The first thing you need to do is rename the current sound from:

yhwoodpecker.wav

To:

005 yhwoodpecker.wav

This proper naming of the sound file starts off with the sound position ID number, has the description, and ends with the extension. Always be sure that the file naming scheme described in the earlier section of the manual is followed.

To rename the file on your Mac, click on the file name and hit the "enter" key on your keyboard one time. Doing this should allow you to type in the new file name. Once the new name is entered, you can copy this file from your computer into the folder for your FOXPRO game call.

Now let's say you want to remove sound 001 from the unit and replace it with mySound04.mp3. The first thing you need to do is remove the current 001 from the unit.

To do this, click on the icon for sound 001 so it becomes highlighted, then choose "delete" from your file menu.

You can now rename your other sound on your hard drive to:

001 mySound04.mp3 (or whatever you want to call it - i.e. 001 Crow Call.mp3)

After you have successfully renamed the file, you need to copy it into the unit.

This should give you the basics for programming sounds manually. It does require a bit more work than using the programming utility, but it can be a great process to understand should you need to reprogram a unit without access to the utility.

If you are going to program sounds from your hard drive to the FOXPRO game call you should use the following steps as a guide:

1. Appropriately name the files on your hard drive with the correct sound position ID numbers for the spots you want to insert the sounds in.
2. Backup the sounds from your game call before making any changes just in case something goes wrong.
3. Copy the new sounds from your hard drive to your game call.
4. If you are planning to rearrange the sounds on your game call, be sure that each individual file has its own unique sound position ID number. Always double-check to make sure the same number isn't used twice.

Rearranging Your Sounds

As with programming your game call manually, rearranging sounds on your game call in a manual mode is going to be a bit more difficult than using the programming utility, but it can be done. The first and most important factor to consider is the file naming scheme discussed earlier. As long as you fully comprehend the file naming scheme, this will be no problem.

For this example we will say that the following sounds are loaded on your game call:

000 Coyote Locator.FXP
001 Jackrabbit Distress.FXP
002 Vole Squeak.FXP
003 Woodpecker Distress.FXP
004 Crow Fight.FXP
005 Rodent Distress.FXP

Let's say that you want to move the rodent distress (005) up closer to the vole squeak (002). The decision is made to move 005 to position 003, but you want to leave the other sounds in the same order.

The key to doing this is to rename the files, but the only part we are going to modify is the sound position ID number. Click on 005 so it becomes highlighted, and then press enter a single time so you can type in a new number. Remove 005 and replace it with 003.

In doing this you will now have two sounds labeled 003. The fix is simple. Start at the original 003 (woodpecker distress) and rename that one to 004. Move on to 004 (crow fight) and rename is 005. Your list should now look like this:

000 Coyote Locator.FXP
001 Jackrabbit Distress.FXP
002 Vole Squeak.FXP
003 Rodent Distress.FXP
004 Woodpecker Distress.FXP
005 Crow Fight.FXP

This whole process can be applied to rearranging sounds all across your FOXPRO game call. If you are working with a Scorpion or FX5 or Fury GX7 with a large amount of sounds, patience will play a big part when doing this manually.