Search the Community

Have not seen anyone mention how many hours they get on the the rechargeable battery will they last all day?

Finally got the GM1000 out on the lode mine gravels I have access to. The small coil picked through the iron and trash easier than my GB2 did, and with it being so hot it was REALLY nice not having headphones on. Dug lots of crap, but eventually got a couple nice specimens. Tomorrow, up to one of my favorite benches if I can get across the creek! :-)

Testing phase of this new machine. Tomorrow I will be going out to a copper claim on Vancouver Island. Geology reports that some of the rock may contain gold. I have not charged the battery since purchase. Today I plugged the lithium ion battery into the wall charger in prep for tomorrow but did not see any light. When I first un-boxed the unit I plugged the battery in and a red light came on. The next day the light was green (fully charged). This time no light. Does this mean the battery is still at a high enough charge? Does this battery require a full discharge before re-charge or should it be plugged in after every use even if just a few hours? Many thanks for this...seems like not a very important question but I did not find any reference on ML site "search" function. As far as the unit itself for my wee spot of the globe ... too early to tell. It did find a few old coins in my lady's flower bed first go round. Looking forward to testing it out tomorrow on this very large copper claim in the Port Alberni area.

Just received my GM 1000: (As posted on another forum) First outing today for 2 hrs in a trashy garden. Picked up two 50 yr old Canadian coins (quarter and a penny) in deep all metal mode showing non ferrous.... ok so far. On the other hand this detector has a flimsy, cheap feel to it despite not expecting heavy duty at that price. The "lid" for the battery compartment I believe would embarrass even "made in China". However, time will tell. My previous detector was a Whites TDI... very tank like. Had I not had such a good offer ..would have kept it. My bro has a Fisher Gold Bug 2 and the GB pro. I am sensing a bit of regret I did not go the same way.

Pros & cons on these two detectors? (one versus the other)----All opinions welcome!

Steve, a curious question for you. Two GM 1000 detectors both using Koss UR30 headphones. Headphones work on both units with no sound from external speaker on either unit. Same two units do the same while using the Minelab provided headphones. No sound from external speaker. Now, when Black Widow headphones are used:. #1 Headphones work #2 Headphones work along with external speaker at the same time. Black Widows set up differently somehow? Same additional jacks were used on all tests. Technology on GM 1000 rejecting use of Black Widow headphones? Any clues? Thanks, Trinityau/RayMills

Finally the GM has arrived up in the Yukon yesterday and I managed to get today off. Off to the claim I went. Skunked. First found a .22 Short casing under moss, then a shard of bullet about 4" in gravel. Both sounded off loud with consistent right readings. Also found a 1972 Canadian dime on way home at a river crossing on edge of the river and panned one solid signal and found three colours. Oh and a 1 1/4" rusted steel nut. I'm thinking I need a new pair of hiking boots. Pretty sure the "steel" toe boots I was wearing was screwing up the detector. Scanned the toes and it banged hard non ferrous. Steve, no graphite so far... And worthwhile visible gold. Ran it mainly in Auto plus and Iron reject with full volume on the external speaker. But at least I got out of town and had fun. Better luck next time I hope :)

Well, the final, part three of my videos on the Gold Monster 1000 are complete and up loaded. In this one I am giving hints and tips on how to get the best performance out of the GM1000. I focus on the types of places that the GM1000 will perform best and some suggestions to prospectors on how to increase your chances to find gold. You can see its a funny opening still picture - I'm going to have to change that frame. It makes me look like I'm doing some kind of Zieg Heil maneuver. Actually, I am explaining how if you dont overlap swings, you may miss gold - I have no idea why this was selected by Youtube (done automatically), but I am sure you can change it. Doing these videos has been an educational experience and I will be doing more in the coming weeks.

Hi all, im alex from patagonia argentine, i have a gold monster inbox , i cant use because we have like a 60 cm of snow now, i must wait few days or weeks! I have a few questions about accesories for this detector, i read all the post, excelents alls!!! Im very happy to belong at this forum! Thanks, what do you think about headphones? It possible to use a betters headphones like ur-30 1/4 with adapter off course? Change something? The pro-sonic works in this model? And the lastone , coils. its possible to put anothers coils?? Like a coiltek or anothers minelab coils, for more deep for example. One thing i do was change The tweezers for a 12v car charger, works perfect.

Hi all, just thought I would share abit of a story on my gold monster, Well I received it a few weeks ago from JP and had a bit of a play round with it with various size nuggets in the back yard while also checking out the discrimination feature. Was happy with the results on specie gold and more solid type bits. Well to cut a long story short, I fell off some machinery at a height of 3.5 meters plus and broke 2 fingers on my right hand which were at right angles of where they were sposed to be.Snapped them back into place by myself, but fractured both wrists and dislocated my right shoulder and had a nasty lump on my head from impact with a rock Anyway though keen to go bush to give it a good trial run myself I was in no position to even hold a pick properly let alone swing one into hard earth. Goldhound Dale one of our crew has met a new girl and asked if she could take it bush with him for a week, Anyway a sat phone call last night, a novice that had never picked up a detector in her life now had a 25 grammer in her jar. Hope to post a pick when they come in. Go the monster, not just for specks by the looks. Cheers Dave.

After taking delivery of my new Gold Monster 1000 a few days ago, I was finally able to get out into the hills with it this afternoon. Most of the ground I detected was mild enough to use the deep all metal search mode and a manual sensitivity of 10; other areas were pretty mineralized but tolerable using the sensitivity plus setting. Pictured are 3 nugglets and 3 flakes recovered with the 5-inch coil.

OK, I know people are probably tired of looking at my Fly-Poo gold, but check out the amazingly tiny piece in the middle that the GM1000 heard no problem this afternoon up at my "old reliable" bench! Again, I had to take out some brush and dig down a little to get these 6 little guys. Anyone who knows me, knows I love my GB2, but I think I'm starting to love the Monster more....it's such a fun machine! ?

I am getting a little impatient waiting for the Deus elipitical as summer starts and I find myself wanting to explore more with some discrimination while still being sensitive for tiny gold. By tiny I mean the small stuff I'm missing with the gpz, but big enough to see with my old man vision...not flakes I'd need tweezers to collect. I have the Deus with 11", so going down to a 9" coil would be great improvement in the feel of the detector, also I've been using it for a year now and am beginning to understand it a little. The reports on the 9" hf have been good as have the reports on the GM1000. Wondering if anyone has any thoughts as to how they might compair? Do I keep waiting with still no firm release date? Is it technical issues or marketing strategy delaying the release? I'm planning a drive to Colorado the end of next month and was going to bring the Deus with a hf coil, now I'm beginning to wonder if I wouldn't be better off with the GM?

I know it is really early in the bout. But possibly is the new kid on the block going to knock out the reining champion of many many years in the gold nugget VLF sport? I'm hearing so many good things about the GM 1000. And I'm really leaning on getting one soon. Hearing so many good reports from " Average Joe" dectectorists. I have had way more experience and success with Minelab detectors than any other brands. So I guess I speak Minelabbian better than anything else. My gut feeling thinks that we might be crowing a new Welterweight Champ. I guess time will tell?????

Hello everyone.. Im rookie starting out gold prospecting with a metal detector. I have always dredged for my gold and wanted to give metal detecting a go. So i have gotten the GM as my first gold prospecting detector and i would have to say im very impressed. Im happy with how simple it is even in our hot soil here the Dominican Republic. I had to switch from deep all metal to "Gold Mode" most of the time because of the ground noise. But it was manageable for a rookie like me just walk everywhere and just detect. Found a couple false signals but they was like pockets of black sand they appear while scraping off the overburden to reveal more the signal. So i have went to a place where some lady just walking by found a piece of gold since i dont know of no place here where people would metal detect since no one do nugget shooting with a prospecting machine. After about like 10 minutes i got a good signal and i dug my first gold nugget about 4" down. It weighted in at 1.4 Grams. After trying to search the are for 10 more minutes and not founding nothing more i left since it looked like it wanted to rain. So i have found my first place where i know i have found shallow gold. Hope i could start now a list of these deposit to revisit when i have a PI machine .

Picked up my GM1000 from Gerry on Friday, then after doing chores up at the cabin got it out yesterday and today. Used the larger coil for scouting out a new spot and after a couple hours of no decent targets yesterday, went over the same area with my GB2. Still nothing, so at least I didn't miss anything in that area, but I wasn't real comfortable with the Monster yet. So today, after yacking with VA Nurse Paul last night and Scott T today...both singing its praises, I put the small coil on it and went to my "old reliable" bench to see if I could squeak out another baby nugget. Moved rocks and dug up some sagebrush....initially hunting with trusty GB2 to get a target, then compare it with the Monster. Wow, it could hear the Fly-poo AU I find up there, and the disc was pretty reliable! I found 3 pieces using the GB2 first, then once I was more comfortable with how the Monster responds, it sniffed out 6 more! I noticed on some "iffy" signals that the Goldbug heard, the Monster picked them up a bit better. I was using manual 10 sensitivity and All Metal/deep, and as others have mentioned, it does false if you hit a rock etc. Not using headphones and having no threshold hum was actually nice for a change too. Pretty cool machine....tomorrow I'm going to hit the hard rock gravels and see how it does. :-)

Does the 1000 ID all low conductors as possible gold? For example a beer pull tab and a nickel? Women's and men's gold rings? Is so what is the breaking point where it will not indicate a possible gold target?

I stand about 6 feet but the GM 1000 shaft is just too long. So this is what I done to make it right for me only. I first put the shaft together then put the large coil on. Then I slip the control head on and found if I put it just past the end shaft where the middle starts is just right for me. I then slip the arm rest where I wanted but this leaves the shaft hitting me when I swing my detector. I took it and cut off 5 1/2 inches. this still leaves 2 inches behind the arm rest. You can now unscrew the end shaft with arm rest from the other. You now have the control head with the coil on two parts of the shaft and the other with the arm rest. When you screw them back together you may have to adjust the arm rest a little. You will find the longest part with the head and coil is 36 inches. I buy gun cases for my metal detectors and most are 38" if not longer with three big pockets on one side. The cost runs about 79.but can get them on sale for 49-59. Be sure this will work for you before you make a cut. Chuck PS The end shaft is aluminum and you can knock the plastic plug out after you cut the shaft to put it in the other.

Hello Finally had a day off after weeks of work to go detecting. My partner and i both had new purchases to try. First i tried out my new 18" detech mono coil for my 5000. It is an amazing coil. Very very quiet in tough soil. It is really sensitive to small targets. I dug one gold piece today at .24 gr. In about 20 minutes of detecting. And some lead targets missed by my previous grid sessions with the coiltek 14 and 18" elites. The detech 18" is definitely a keeper for my arsenal. Next was the amazing performance put on by my lovely partner and her new gold monster. I let her find quite a few undug targets at a site where we found hundreds of pieces of tiny gold in the past. Then once she had a few targets. I tried to follow her gold monsters performance with my makro gold racer running in all metal with sensitivity 75 and enough isat to run a smooth threshold. Any isat less then 7 dont work here. Blanks out the threshold constantly. In the end i could get a signal on 1/3 of her gold monsters undug targets. Mostly they were all a tiny break in the threshold. I also tried my disc 2 mode with the sensitivity turned up to where it gets sparky.(90) But they still just had a small beep. Her gold monster had a totally different reply to the undug targets. Very loud. Which i believe was already stated by steve in his report. We also had her try gold monster in many manual sensitivity settings in all metal. All the way to manual 10. But it is a little sparky up too high. Best manual setting for this site was 6. But the targets were either alot quieter or non existent with that setting. The disc mode was also applied and sounded off well on them. Just not as sensitive. The autoplus mode was definitely the best app for our conditions at the goldfield. The mineralization only made an occasional peep in autoplus. But was easily recognizeable. A few hot hematites sounded off. But they can be checked in a quick switch to disc. Then only once in awhile they would slightly ping only in one direction. So then we dug up the undug targets. Some were tiny birdshot but most were gold, missed previously with other detectors. Everyone of them amazed me how loud they were for their size. Especially the 2 that wont even weigh in the 10ths of grains. These targets were not right on the surface or i would have heard all of them with gold racer. They were deeper then gold racer could detect. I have mostly detected with vlf detectors for 32 years and i could not believe what i was seeing. It was actually pretty funny. Now i feel like i am running old school equipment with my gold racer. I am definitely going to be making the change to gold monster myself. No its not a zed or a pulse induction unit, but i am willing to put money on youll find gold you missed with whatever you are using now. If you already own a monster then take a look at the red dot at the end of the foreign writing and see how small it is. Thats how small the gold we found. Only it sounded like a shallow gram piece of gold. All the 18 pcs that gold monster found totaled only 1/2 dwt. Big money! I have seen the promised land and it is real and its called gm1000. Good luck

Greetings fellow prospectors! For a more than a year I have thought about doing up some Youtube videos on prospecting and I have finally gotten off my backside and done it! This is the first video of a 3 part set where I will be taking a look at Minelab's new Gold Monster 1000 nugget oriented metal detector. This part one video is an introductory discussion about its various features and settings. In the next couple weeks I will put up part 2 which will be on testing the GM1000 out in the field and then part 3 will cover some practical suggestions for prospectors on getting the most out of your Gold Monster 1000 and a discussion of some of the best kinds of places to use the GM1000. I will publish those other parts soon, but for now, here is the part 1 video. The quality here may not be perfect, but there is a lot of good information and content in this video. Additionally, now that I have the ball rolling you can expect other videos on different prospecting topics coming later once I have completed these 3. - Chris

Finally received my GM 1000 today from Chris at Arizona Outback great guy vary easy to deal with and always willing to give advise when I speak to him on the phone. Put it together and put a set of new batteries in because I wanted to charge up the rechargeable battery pack put the larger coil on to start Took it out to an area on my property that I have been over countless times with the X TERRA 705 and had never even got a hit with the 705 turned on the GM 1000 let it do its noise cancel and started detecting had it set in the auto plus settings at first and started getting hits almost immediately some were pinging the gold chance meter and others were 2-3 bars on the gold chance meter the GM 1000 runs really quite in an area that is riddled with hot rock kind of surprised me as to just how quite it ran,really simple to set up and just start detecting the instruction manual well lets just say not vary informative but I kind of understand why after turning the GM 1000 on not a lot to understand as it is automatic once you tun it on I played with the sensitivity setting on it and found for me if I backed the sensitivity down 2-3 bars it seemed to give cleaner hits on targets haven't dug any of the targets yet that were pinging the gold chance meter yet but tomorrow I will dig them up and see what they are, here is hoping there what the meter is saying,just wanted to get a feel for the GM 1000 first and it was getting late so I just marked the spots and went on, over all I marked probably 30 spots that I want to go back and check out,will post more once I have had a chance to use the GM 1000. .

It has certainly been a busy year for me so far, with not as much detecting time as I would like. Still, I have been getting out a little and thought it was time to share a few photos. My first couple bits were found with the Minelab Gold Monster 1000 on some scouting runs. I am liking this detector as a grab and go unit for checking areas out quickly. I am not trying to hunt for max performance but instead looking to cover a lot of ground quickly to check things out. I have learned the GM1000 auto sensitivity actually suits me well for this. I just fire up the detector in all metal mode, full volume, and start with auto sensitivity set at Auto+1. Then I just start swinging. If noise intrudes (usually in salt areas) I will back down to Auto+0 (there are just two Auto settings available Auto and Auto+1). Once the GM1000 gets out and about people will no doubt note the Auto settings are not the hottest. Which is why I like them. The GM1000 is a super hot machine already, so I am looking more for stability than anything else, and know it will pop hard on any small nuggets I get over. If I were pounding a patch hard I would use manual sensitivity and push it high, but that would introduce noise and require very careful hunting. For me however the GM1000 serves best as a light weight quick and dirty way to check new areas - just grab and go. I posted previously about finding a nugget using Auto sensitivity which is where I learned how useful the setting is. Here are two more small nuggets located using Auto+1. Both nuggets banged hard, one at maybe an inch and the other at about three inches. I am not trying to promote or to push the use of this setting, I am simply reporting what I am doing and you can decide for yourself if it is useful for you. 0.1 gram and 0.4 gram nuggets found with Minelab Gold Monster 1000 running in Auto+1 sensitivity I did finally get a GPZ 19 coil for my GPZ 7000 and it was time to give it a go. I tried one area I had hunted before in case a larger deeper nugget was lurking. My first lesson with the GPZ 19 was not how large and deep a nugget it can find but how small and shallow! The only thing I had missed and left to find was this less than 0.1 gram nugget. It was practically on the surface and so gave a small warble when it got close to the coil winding. I was surprised and impressed the coil can find gold this small. The next location is one I scouted with the GM1000 and found the 0.4 gram nugget. The spot got my interest so I went back with the GPZ 7000 and 14" coil to hunt it. Turns out it was a nice little patch with some chunky gold! The ground was deep so I mounted up the GPZ19 and hunted it again. I did come up with one nugget I missed before, whether from sloppy detecting or just a little too deep I do not know. It was a little 1.2 grammer at around a foot down. I continued hunting outside my area and came up with another at 1.3 grams. GPZ19 Nuggets I had removed the Minelab skid plate that came with the coil and replaced it with the closed Nugget Finder cover. I like this cover for uneven ground as it does not get hung up of rocks and sticks as much, but it does rapidly collect a pile of debris! The coil did false if banged on a rock and would require care in rocky ground, though I was running it as hot as ever so that contributes to it. I usually hunt grassy and sagebrush country and it does well here just gliding on the grass, though if the grass is deep it will ride up on it above the ground. Still, the larger size gave me this feeling that I had a little extra insurance in that regard and so I used it to hunt over low brush where it might reveal nuggets hidden when others went around the brush. False signals from banging a rock aside I do think the coil actually runs a bit smoother with my Insanely Hot settings. The GPZ19 is slightly too heavy for me for general use in hilly terrain and too large for a lot of the sagebrush areas. It is just the ticket however for covering large open terrain and that is where it will see the most use with me in the future, or for pounding old deep patches. The extra pound was not quite as bad as I was expecting and in flatter ground just my regular bungee setup sufficed. I did try out the Hipstick though and think it a better option for long hours with this coil. Well, lots of info there I hope people can get some use out of. It's always nice to be out prospecting whether or not I find any gold - but gold does help! 24 grams or about 3/4 ounce with largest nugget 4.5 grams or just shy of three pennyweight. This post has been promoted to an article

Here is my review on the GM1000 if your interested, I posted it n my FB a few days ago but thought some people here may be interested and no I don't keep the machines I test and no im not a minelab "only" detectorist :) Well first off, very impressed overall with the Minelab Metal Detectors Gold Monster 1000. I tested the machine out in WA with our mineralised soil and it performed better then any VLF ive ever used. It detected pieces of gold smaller then a 5000 with a sadie coil and in fact smaller then the SDC, basically pin pricks of gold! but thats not what i see as this machines "selling' point, the descrimination features of this machine are outstanding and the main reason i believe people should add this machine to their arsenal of prospecting gear. Unlike the GP-X/Z range of detectors there is no hum of the threshold, just silence and when it detects a piece of metallic rubbish when the machine is set to descriminate, unlike the the GP series of detectors with a DD that "blanks" out the middle of the signal, the Gold Monster completely removes any audible signal that rubbish(tin etc) has been detected. You still get a visual on the screen indicating you have walked over a bit of rubbish but no annoying booming signal blasting your ears every 10 seconds. There is a little indicator on the screen which shows a scale with "unlikely gold" & "likely gold" at either end. This is what shows you that a target has been found as well as a signal and although Aluminum & lead will show as "likely gold" 90% of rubbish targets will be removed by the descriminate feature on this machine. Making this machine perfect to clear out those rubbishy areas that are avoided like the plague on the goldfields all over Australia and im sure the world. This is what i believe is this machines strongest selling point & the reason i will be adding it to my prospecting gear & will have in the car at all times whilst out having a swing. Of course with the size of coils available its going to be sensitive but how sensitive it was to tiny pieces of gold amazed me, having something so sensitive there had to be a give on the negative side somewhere and that of course is with depth...this machine will not be pinging targets at depth...unless of course its a 10 ounce nugget a foot down lol but pinging a gram nugget 15cms down would be almost impossible but as i said thats not what i believe is this detectors selling point. Being able to turn the detector on in the front yard was an added bonus i forgot completely about after using the GP series for many years & i could see the detector being used for coin shooting etc as well as you can run the machine in "all metal" and it will detect everything that comes its way and at better depths I believe it will handle salty ground quite well so using it for crevices etc around the shore line of the salt lakes is a possibility. Also having the coil waterproof to 1m makes this a viable option to "crevice" under the water line on the east coast to be able to identify possible crevices to suck clean and run the cons, not to mention finding areas that "pool" lead etc as where the heavies pool so does the gold! It would also be fantastic to go over old timers dry blowing piles that have weathered down over the years...i reckon you could pull little specks of gold out of those piles all day long ! In the end i was very impressed with the machine as a whole, this is not a replacement or even a competitor to the GPX/GPZ machines and nor has it ever proclaimed to be but it def gives you an edge being able to detect certain areas of the goldfields which have previously been basically ignored by the masses ,the few people that persist and clean out a rubbish area are generally rewarded for the hard work they put in, having this machine at your disposal will enable you to tackle these areas with a bit more ease and a lot less stress & annoyance! The weight of the machine was as light as they come and a really cool feature i hope they add to the GPX/Z is the additional charger that has positive and negative alligator clips so you can connect directly to battery to quickly charge on the fly! One negative was the shaft didn't "shrink" up and stays extended ...pain in the bum for fitting in the car but this can be rectified by using a GPX shaft I believe. Special thanks must go to Matt, Tracy & Pockets @ Finders Keepers Kalgoorlie for enabling me to test the machine. If you need prospecting gear you cant go wrong with Finders Keepers Steve Nugget in the Hand Prospecting

One of the guys at my workplace has been tagging along on some of my recent gold trips and has thus been inspired to purchase the GM1000 from a local dealer as soon as it became available. As a first outing we went to a claim I am a partner in for some detecting. We went as part of a group of 5 that had 4 different types of detectors with them. We have detected this river claim extensively and unless there is a flood that moves some material and exposes bedrock we don't find a lot anymore. Consequently we often dig by hand and scan the bedrock that we expose to recover the gold. Once at the claim three guys got to work digging a hole while myself and my friend with the GM took off up the creek in order for me to teach him how to use a detector. The plan was for me to use the GM1000 for a while and get him to watch me work while I told him what I was doing and then gradually hand over to him. First gold came after about two steps in a bedrock crevice. I had detected a small nugget in the same crevice before on a previous outing but obviously the GM was more sensitive and had managed to find something. There were two tiny prices in the crevice. We continued up the creek and found a few pieces here and there, all were small to very very small. Some bits well below 0.1g. After about half a dozen bits I left my friend to carry on on his own and joined the other three guys with digging the hole. After a couple of hours the man with the GM returned successful, he'd found his first three pieces of gold and was very happy. After that I got my hands back on his detector and found more pieces up and down the creek. The main points of interest with using the GM1000 I found are; Pros- #easy turn on and go operation #very sensitive to small gold #light weight #quite reliable ferrous / non ferrous indicator #lack of threshold easier for amateurs to interpret #clear signal from targets #excellent pinpointing Cons- #picks up hot rocks #signals when entering water #sensitive to coil and coil cable banging (although, what detector isn't) Generally I think this detector is a top performing VLF that is ideal for hunting gold in bedrock crevices or other shallow ground. Ideal for getting the last scraps from gold producing areas. Not so good for outright depth or areas with a lot of hot rocks as, despite the ferrous indicator, they still make a signal to burden your ears. Much of the gold that we got with the GM seems to have been quite small and other detectors simply missed them. We were calling these pieces monster flakes! Clarifications, Detector was run in maximum sensitivity in the deep / all metal setting. Bedrock is generally un-mineralised with isolated bands of noisy rock. 5 inch coil was used.And the total loot in the picture below, biggest bit is 1.39g (found with SDC2300 but anything could have found it). All but I think three pieces were found with the GM1000. If you have any questions I will do my best to answer.

I just read one report by an Aussie dissatisfied customer. What a surprise. We heard the same things about the initial release of the SDC 2300 and the GPZ 7000. As I recall our moderator took a fair amount of bashing from his reviews of the previous machines as well. For Pete's sake, it's a VLF and in OZ it cannot hope to equal pulse induction in hot ground, nor does it claim to. It's an entry level machine ostensibly targeting the African gold rush. Its price point and turn on and go features have a place. As Steve as said time and again, when considering VLF, there really are no groundbreaking technology innovations available for this platform other than ergonomics and simplicity of use. I've tried my hand at VLFs over the years and I liked the Gold Bug II for a very narrow purpose, small, shallow gold in relatively quiet ground. I sold it in favor of the Deus. I don't think the Deus, at least the 54Khz 9" round, is better than or even equal to the GBII for that purpose, but it is more versatile and I'm sticking with it. Get ready for the Minelab bashing to begin.