Generic pinouts for the VXR and other data links are on
http://forums.radioreference.com/vertex-standard/317376-vertex-vxr1000-kenwood-tk-7360h.html
VOX is a wonderful thing ... when it works. Never played with the BK high end stuff (although the wildland guys swear by them), but I would think that signal is signal and as long as the VOX circuit sees it the system should go into TX. The VXR will output audio no matter what, so it may be a level or connection point issue. Call Tech Support. I'm all for making tracks in virgin snow, but someone has probably marked that particular path.
AFG was good to us. The county is 850 sq miles, with 300' elevation changes over a few miles. Wonderful deer hunting. In THEORY, our county follows NFPA:
All initial notification on a dedicated, common one way channel; first TX from a local site then with auto replay from the big bad central site after 15 seconds. Tertiary notification via I am Responding.
Two Identically performing voted repeated infrastructure C&C channels (only one with the aforementioned UHF) with 99% mobile and 95% portable 2-way coverage. Confirmation, response coordination and wide area comms start here and Dispatch, IC, and off-scene coordination stays here. Stupid plain old analog for the Great Eight.
Ops/Tactical/Life&safety use an analog simplex channel once they get on scene (Illinois has six MABAS common statewide simplex tactical channels, bless 'em). I also have a couple simplex licensed channels in my hip pocket for 'other' uses.
My three biggest problems are user self-inflicted: not moving ops/tactical off the repeated C&C channel, the persistence of one dept using their grand-dad's proprietary 'secret squirrel' channel for ops (with a major metro area 40 miles away banging non-stop high powered paging), and 'Indians' trying to scan every channel and ignoring the one they're supposed to be on so the 'Chiefs' can find them.
I can be an unpopular SOB when it hits the fan, but I'm old (and experienced) enough I don't care and stand my ground. There was a regional incident (not close to me) and in the after action report two things stood out. None of the command structure actually followed the COML's accepted plan, and Command complained that comms sucked. I ain't that smart, but I suspect I know why this is so common a situation: Using the right tools was not in their automatic playbook.