John Currie wrote:

Hi all,    I am writing this email with great trepidation.  Firstly what
I am about to write  could be to my benefit because I have been involved
with a previous claim for a transatlantic exchange of information.  I
must,  however,  say what I firmly believe.   As stated in a previous
email Earth Moon Earth (EME) operators , the inventors of the TMO system
of weak signal reports along with other weak,  or itermittent,   signal
operators  such as meteor scatter operators have all called for an
exchange of COMPLETE calls plus a signal report as the minimum
requirement for a QSO.

This is my point and others that I have spoken to agree for a credible qso
the full callsign and report must be exchanged and not bits and pieces at
different times.

          They have also never to my knowledge looked at 8 or ten days
of data to pile up enough dots and dashes to constitute a QSO

Again I have said many times that a qso must be made at a single session and
not collate bits and pieces over several days or weeks.
In my opinion anyone claiming to make a qso out of bits and pieces of
information transmitted and received over days and weeks is not VALID.
If the information that I read on this reflector/list regarding recent
claims for a transatlantic first qso between the UK and Canada is correct
then it was made under the bits and pieces criteria and took nearly 2 weeks
and not valid in my opinion. The operator at each end knew what callsign to
expect
and therefore only one or two letters were needed and fill in the rest.
It would be a different story if the callsigns were NOT known in advance,
this type of qso could not take place.
I suggest a NEW start and follow the established EME procedures or the 160
metre normal HF system.

.
           I feel the  most that cas be ascribed to the  marathon effort
is four or five
25 per cent completed QSOs.

This small percentage hardly constitutes a valid qso, on any other band it
would be a FAILED attempt.

           73 de John VE1ZJ