diff --git a/db/db.update.173.php b/db/db.update.173.php
index bf28b4f..d097c12 100644
--- a/db/db.update.173.php
+++ b/db/db.update.173.php
@@ -195,6 +195,19 @@ function db_update_173_post(){
 		}
 	}
 
+
+	// finally, we'll update the character encoding on the database itself
+	global $DBNAME;
+	$query = "ALTER DATABASE `$DBNAME` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci";
+	echo "$query\n";
+	$success = mysql_query($query);
+	if($success){
+		echo "Successfully switched database character set to utf8\n";
+	}else{
+		echo "Unable to switch database character set to utf8\n";
+		$totalFailCount++;
+	}
+
 	echo "\nFinished updating values with $totalFailCount failed queries.\n";
 }