diff --git a/docs/file_format_specifications.md b/docs/file_format_specifications.md
index ebbf338d5d..1d40e5375b 100644
--- a/docs/file_format_specifications.md
+++ b/docs/file_format_specifications.md
@@ -625,7 +625,7 @@ data are written). In that case the specified endian type will be used
 in HDF5 (for example, a H5T_STD_I16LE will be used for NC_SHORT, if
 little-endian has been specified for that variable.)
 - NC_BYTE = H5T_NATIVE_SCHAR
-- NC_UBYTE = H5T_NATIVE_SCHAR
+- NC_UBYTE = H5T_NATIVE_UCHAR
 - NC_CHAR = H5T_C_S1
 - NC_STRING = variable length array of H5T_C_S1
 - NC_SHORT = H5T_NATIVE_SHORT
diff --git a/libsrc4/nc4hdf.c b/libsrc4/nc4hdf.c
index 1889973341..32fd4ee9a8 100644
--- a/libsrc4/nc4hdf.c
+++ b/libsrc4/nc4hdf.c
@@ -325,7 +325,7 @@ nc4_get_hdf_typeid(NC_HDF5_FILE_INFO_T *h5, nc_type xtype,
             return NC_EHDFERR;
           if (H5Tset_strpad(typeid, H5T_STR_NULLTERM) < 0)
             BAIL(NC_EVARMETA);
-	  if(H5Tset_cset(typeid, H5T_CSET_UTF8) < 0)
+	  if(H5Tset_cset(typeid, H5T_CSET_ASCII) < 0)
 	    BAIL(NC_EVARMETA);
 
           /* Take ownership of the newly created HDF5 datatype */
diff --git a/nc_test4/tst_strings2.c b/nc_test4/tst_strings2.c
index f5c60d6c9e..f0b7aa2b1c 100644
--- a/nc_test4/tst_strings2.c
+++ b/nc_test4/tst_strings2.c
@@ -27,8 +27,9 @@ main(int argc, char **argv)
       int ncid, i;
       char *data_in[ATT_LEN];
       char *data[ATT_LEN] = {"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — "
-			     "hoping it will eat him last."};
-
+                             "hoping it will eat him last. "
+                             "Here are some non-ASCII characters: "
+                             "\x00\xAA\xBB\xFF"};
 
       if (nc_create(FILE_NAME, NC_NETCDF4, &ncid)) ERR;
       if (nc_put_att(ncid, NC_GLOBAL, ATT_NAME, NC_STRING, ATT_LEN, data)) ERR;