[PLUG] Ascii versus UTF-8 woes

[American Citizen]

Hi:

I have a set of tex files which are in pure ascii format. Unfortunately 
when I copy material from the internet (Mozilla Firefox browser) it is 
in UTF-8 format, not ascii. This appears to be standard behavior for the 
internet browsers.

When I paste the material into the tex document (using TexStudio) the 
paste goes okay. It only blows up when I try to save the newer file. The 
UTF-8 characters cannot be saved in ascii format and for some bizarre 
reason Tex Studio wont' change the encoding to UTF-8 even though I have 
the option set that the editor is working with UTF-8 character set.

iconv won't work either, I do the "iconv -f ASCII -t UTF-8 input_file -o 
output_file and the file remains ascii.

Does anyone have an idea of how I can get TexStudio to wake up and 
change the file encoding on the current ascii file to UTF-8?

I cannot get iconv to change the ascii file to UTF-8, so I am stuck 
between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Randall