[UK-CONTEST] Channel rights?

[Peter Hobbs]

OK, I guess this is all in a day's business for many of you, but I 
usually only run in international events 2 or 3 times a year.  There's 
at least one subscriber to this forum who may disagree with my 
viewpoint, but I hadn't realised that the following practice (seen 
during CQ 160 at the weekend) has become effectively the norm.

Having found a usable channel, sent QRL? with no reply, fired off a few 
CQs and worked a couple of punters, the alleged "proprietor" comes on 
the scene, claiming he has been using the channel for "long" and refuses 
to recognise that by departing for whatever reason, he has lost use of 
it.  As far as I was concerned, this was a matter of principal and, 
especially as I was still able to make a few QSOs, there was no way I 
was going to budge.  Thanks are due to a couple of G stations who may or 
may not have fully understood exactly what was going on (they know who 
they are!), but took the trouble to call during the episode.  
Eventually, the offending station would go off somewhere for a few 
minutes, returning from time to time to CQ specifically over one of my 
callers.  Do people try to hold two run channels at once perhaps?  And 
are they all from E Europe??

My question: who was being unreasonable?

73, Peter G3LET