Mark,
Assuming that you are utlizing the alert tool within QDX IDE, this can be set up by adding a new alert row to the existing ones.
Click on append button.
in the append dialog box, for Alert type -> select forward_count in drop down list.
Select the thread_name for the source list.
In the field adjacent to comparing ==, type the number of messages for the recovery database.
in the action tab, select the alert method you wanted — either exec/notify.
I would prefer using exec and put the following in the command field.
mailx -s ‘%A’ yourname@name.com < /dev/null
save it and test.
Hope this helps.
Reggie