diff --git a/REQUIRE b/REQUIRE
index ce3fc73..89f8f67 100644
--- a/REQUIRE
+++ b/REQUIRE
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 julia 0.3
 Compat
-Conda
 Docile
 PyCall
+StringEncodings
diff --git a/src/SerialPorts.jl b/src/SerialPorts.jl
index be11832..8726c78 100644
--- a/src/SerialPorts.jl
+++ b/src/SerialPorts.jl
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ module SerialPorts
 export SerialPort, SerialException, setDTR, list_serialports,
        check_serial_access
 
-using Compat, Conda, PyCall
+using Compat, PyCall, StringEncodings
 VERSION < v"0.4-" && using Docile
 
 const PySerial = PyCall.PyNULL()
@@ -28,24 +28,8 @@ immutable SerialPort <: IO
 end
 
 function __init__()
-    try
-        copy!(PySerial, pyimport("serial"))
-        copy!(PySerialListPorts, pyimport("serial.tools.list_ports"))
-    catch e
-        if PyCall.conda
-            info("Installing serial via the Conda package...")
-            Conda.add("pyserial")
-            copy!(PySerial, pyimport("serial"))
-            copy!(PySerialListPorts, pyimport("serial.tools.list_ports"))
-        else
-            error("""Failed to pyimport("serial"): SerialPorts will not work until you have a functioning pyserial module.
-                  For automated serial installation, try configuring SerialPorts to use the Conda Python distribution within Julia.  Relaunch Julia and run:
-                        ENV["PYTHON"]=""
-                        Pkg.build("Serial")
-                        using PyPlot
-                  pyimport exception was: """, e)
-        end
-    end
+    copy!(PySerial, pyimport_conda("serial", "pyserial"))
+    copy!(PySerialListPorts, pyimport("serial.tools.list_ports"))
 end
 
 function serialport(port, baudrate)
@@ -93,6 +77,29 @@ function Base.write(serialport::SerialPort, data::ASCIIString)
     serialport.python_ptr[:write](data)
 end
 
+function Base.write(serialport::SerialPort, data::UTF8String)
+	bytes = encode(data,"UTF-8")
+    if sizeof(bytes) == length(data)
+        serialport.python_ptr[:write](bytes)
+    else
+        i = 1
+        a = Array(Int64,1)
+        while i <= sizeof(data)
+            if sizeof(string(data[i:i])) == 2
+                if bytes[i] == 195 bytes[i+1] = bytes[i+1]+64  end
+            push!(a,i+1)
+            i = i+2
+            else
+                push!(a,i)
+                i = i+1
+            end
+        end
+        a = a[2:end]
+        bytes = bytes[a]
+        serialport.python_ptr[:write](bytes)
+    end
+end
+
 function Base.read(ser::SerialPort, bytes::Integer)
     ser.python_ptr[:read](bytes)
 end