wrong German "Umlauts" character set

Hi everybody,
I'm a registered SP-user since ~2004 and found this group very helpful
more than once - thanks to all those clever people.
I use SP 3.4.14 on a Palm Lifedrive and the Desktop part on Ubuntu 8.10.
As synchronisation doesn't work, I sent a Shadp-*.pdb file from PC to
Palm via Bluetooth. When I opened the file on the Lifedrive the German
Umlauts were not displayed correctly. E.g. instead of "Ö" it read "Ã-"
I guess it's problem with the character code. Is there a way to change
the character code in SP? Or does anybody have another idea?
Thanks for your help.
Tilmann