The possibilities to employ phenol and oxime functionalities as the fluoride recognition motif are investigated. In this regard, two new phenolic oximes H1 and H2 were prepared where the two units are linked via different aliphatic spacers. Among them, H1 exhibits intense and instantaneous colour change upon addition of fluoride ion which is clearly discernible by the “naked eye”. Optical, ¹H NMR and CV analysis established that H1 is a highly selective receptor for fluoride ion as compared to other anions tested during this investigation.