aimed at the waypoint. The target that your waypoint marks always shows on your screen, just like in compass lock, eliminating the need to constantly search with your transducer until the image appears on the screen.
While fish tend to hold tight to objects, they often move off to one side or the other, especially when pressured. Imagine you could program your FFS to scan both sides of an object, automatically sweeping back and forth, as far as you want, and as slow or fast as you want. All while being anchored. This is a feature of the Revolution Sonar named Sweep Mode. Crappie fishermen especially love this feature for tracking where the school has moved.
No other turret or FFS aiming system has all these features, and none are built with the precision and strength of the Revolution Sonar. The inventor (and avid bass angler) Paul Bird of Henderson, Kentucky personally designed and builds the RS1. He mills more than 15 parts from billet aircraft aluminum on his CNC machine in his shop. Not only has he designed the electronic circuit boards, but he designed and wrote the software code, which is compatible with Lowrance Ghost, Garmin Force, Minnkota, and PowerPole. Whichever heading sensor and GPS antenna your boat utilizes (Point-1 on my Lowrance Pros) is picked up by the RS1 to calculate boat heading and position.
All this aircraft aluminum strength is further bolstered by its coaxial mounting design, which mounts your FFS transducer on a rail close to the trolling motor shaft. This eliminates the need for dog-bone support, and it bends with the shaft preventing binding issues. The rail is like what you find on an AR-15 rifle, which allows universal mounting of accessories including up to 3 FFS transducers and devices like Hydrowaves.
The coaxial mounting provides extreme rough water durability without extra weight. Some turrets weigh as much as 23 pounds. The RS1 weighs less than 3 pounds, allows easy deployment and retraction of your trolling motor, and less wear on the lift-assist mechanism and trolling motor bracket.
Another advantage of the coaxial mounting close to the trolling motor shaft is that it won’t interfere with your boat cover.
Perhaps the best feature of the RS1 is its foot pedal, used to aim your FFS transducer. Also machined from billet aircraft aluminum, it features a clear bullet- proof disc that is effortlessly adjusted by your foot when aiming. Three multi-color LEDs show exactly what
Paul Bird with CNC Machine
mode you are operating in, and where your FFS transducer is aimed. Each LED represents 6-degrees, so all three together show 18-degrees which is about the fan-width of your FFS beam in forward mode. These LEDs show you exactly where to cast when you see fish on your screen, or if looking for the edge of a weed bed, or the top of a rock ridge.
The foot pedal response is instantaneous as if it were cable-controlled. The motor provides 540-degrees of rotation with no dead spots or lagging. It allows aiming in 2-degree increments while most others move in 8-degree increments or more, which makes it hard to stay on your target. The motor will sweep as slow as a crawl or faster than you can practically use (0 rpm to 18 rpm).
One of the few parts that are not designed or made by Paul are the foot control buttons. The RS1 uses two
high-quality machined
aluminum MILSPEC buttons
manufactured by Otto that
are the exact buttons used for
the fire control system of the
F22 jet.
The Revolution Sonar forward-facing sonar aiming system is truly revolutionary, and is custom-built with pride, one at a time. What it is NOT is a mass-produced unit by people who don’t fish, and don’t understand how being on the water causes equipment failure.
Finally, we have a new tool that puts more fish in the boat. It will make a huge impact on the way we fish, and it makes FFS an even more powerful tool than before. Be part of the Revolution! More information can be found at revolutionsonar.com and on YouTube @RevolutionSonar. Ciao! •
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Fall 2025
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