uuencoded, compressed, and tarred mail file problem

[claude cantin]

I have problems receiving mail that has been uuencoded, compressed, and
'tar'red.  Running uudecode causes no problems.  Running uncompress causes
no problems.  But running 'tar' brings the message

          tar: directory checksum error (???? != xxxx)

I receive mail on an IBM 3090 running VM/CMS.  I then transfer the
uuencoded, compressed and tarred message to my SUN 3/50 (or 3/60) via ftp.
I do the work on the UNIX machine.  I am running SunOS 4.0.1.

Not only does tar causes a checksum error, but it aborts, leaving me with
only a small portion of the mail message.

Has anyone ran into that problem before?  How did you solve it?  Do I have
a bad version of tar?  Does mail on VM corrupt the message?

  Any suggestions?

  Thank you,

        Claude Cantin (CANTIN at NRCVM01.BITNET)