You must also advise the system that you are using the character set iso-8859-1:
LC_TYPE=iso-8859-1 export LC_TYPEIf you are using X-Window, you must check that the display window can display the iso-8859-1 character font.
For example, put in your resource file .Xdefaults the following line:
XTerm*VT100*font: -adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-m-70-iso8859-1
The choice of the particular font is yours, of course.
It is important to have a fixed font with the name ended in "m-*-iso8859-1". Use xfontsel or xlsfonts to choose your font.
Xterm also requires another resource in order to accept 8 bit character set. Put in your .Xdefaults file the following line:
XTerm*EightBitInput: True