diff --git a/DOCS/tech/mirrors/mirror_howto.txt b/DOCS/tech/mirrors/mirror_howto.txt
index 9b3205481d..5884f48941 100644
--- a/DOCS/tech/mirrors/mirror_howto.txt
+++ b/DOCS/tech/mirrors/mirror_howto.txt
@@ -156,8 +156,13 @@ Here is an example stanza to paste into your Apache configuration:
         Alias /homepage /path/to/htdocs
         Alias /MPlayer  /path/to/MPlayer
         Alias /DOCS     /path/to/MPlayer/DOCS
+        AddDefaultCharset off
 </VirtualHost>
 
+The AddDefaultCharset directive is necessary because newer versions of Apache
+appear to default to defining a standard charset. This breaks our documentation
+translations, which are written in different encodings.
+
 
 Setting up an FTP server
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~