diff --git a/src/core/org/apache/jmeter/samplers/SampleResult.java b/src/core/org/apache/jmeter/samplers/SampleResult.java
index e983af68ec..2ca098016c 100644
--- a/src/core/org/apache/jmeter/samplers/SampleResult.java
+++ b/src/core/org/apache/jmeter/samplers/SampleResult.java
@@ -43,7 +43,9 @@ import org.apache.log.Logger;
  */
 public class SampleResult implements Serializable {
 
-    // Needs to be accessible from Test code
+    public static final String DEFAULT_HTTP_ENCODING = "ISO-8859-1";  // $NON-NLS-1$
+
+	// Needs to be accessible from Test code
     static final Logger log = LoggingManager.getLoggerForClass();
 
 	// Bug 33196 - encoding ISO-8859-1 is only suitable for Western countries
@@ -53,7 +55,7 @@ public class SampleResult implements Serializable {
     // needs to be accessible from test code
 	static final String DEFAULT_ENCODING 
             = JMeterUtils.getPropDefault("sampleresult.default.encoding", // $NON-NLS-1$
-			"ISO-8859-1"); // $NON-NLS-1$
+			DEFAULT_HTTP_ENCODING);
 
 	/**
 	 * Data type value indicating that the response data is text.
@@ -612,7 +614,7 @@ public class SampleResult implements Serializable {
 	 * Returns the dataEncoding or the default if no dataEncoding was provided
 	 */
 	public String getDataEncodingWithDefault() {
-		if (dataEncoding != null) {
+		if (dataEncoding != null && dataEncoding.length() > 0) {
 			return dataEncoding;
 		}
 		return DEFAULT_ENCODING;
diff --git a/src/protocol/http/org/apache/jmeter/protocol/http/sampler/HTTPSampleResult.java b/src/protocol/http/org/apache/jmeter/protocol/http/sampler/HTTPSampleResult.java
index 27f5f96355..9045f0beff 100644
--- a/src/protocol/http/org/apache/jmeter/protocol/http/sampler/HTTPSampleResult.java
+++ b/src/protocol/http/org/apache/jmeter/protocol/http/sampler/HTTPSampleResult.java
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ public class HTTPSampleResult extends SampleResult {
 
 	public HTTPSampleResult() {
 		super();
+		setDataEncoding(DEFAULT_HTTP_ENCODING); // default if encoding not provided be the page
 	}
 
 	public HTTPSampleResult(long elapsed) {
diff --git a/xdocs/changes.xml b/xdocs/changes.xml
index fdc6c750f5..e343fbf935 100644
--- a/xdocs/changes.xml
+++ b/xdocs/changes.xml
@@ -62,6 +62,8 @@ Filenames can now include function references; variable references do not work.<
 Fix SamplingStatCalculator so it no longer adds elapsed time to endTime, as this is handled by SampleResult.
 This corrects discrepancies between Summary Report and Aggregate Report throughput calculation.
 </li>
+<li>Default HTTPSampleResult to ISO-8859-1 encoding</li>
+<li>Fix default encoding for blank encoding</li>
 </ul>
 
 <h4>Improvements</h4>