The new 5.5 tar is aware of MPE file attributes like
file type, file code, records size and alike and will
(by default) create a tar archive including that info.

To create a tar that can be read on 5.0 you have to
add an option to tell it "do it the old way, please".
I think it is -A, e.g. "tar -cvAf mytar.tar *"

Of course, this will make NMPRG files turn into plain
bytestream binaries which need some FROMBYTE and FCOPY
postprocessing to reconstruct NMPRG 128W FB files.

By the way, the latter can also be done with local ftp:

> binary
> get ./bytestreamfile PRGFILE;CODE=NMPRG;REC=128,,F,BINARY

Regards, Lars.