Help with decrypting gpg file

[David Shaw]

On Aug 24, 2009, at 6:28 PM, John Betz wrote:

> I was hoping to get some help with decrypting an archived file. I am  
> using the following command:
>
>
> echo “passphrase”| gpg --passphrase-fd 0 -o output.txt -d input.pgp
>
>
> The output file is created with no problem, however, there is  
> garbage in the first record. If I rename the file (or create it)  
> with a .zip extension and try to open it with WinZip it does not  
> recognize the file as an archive file. When I do the same operation  
> with PGP there is no problem.

How was the file encrypted in the first place?

David