How to write a character string to serial port using SerialPort.Write (String)

I am trying to write a string to the serial port using SerialPort.Write (String). So far I have tried this as follows

I am instantiating a serial port object in my constructor. EDIT: Setting the port parameters solved the problem.

public CSerialPort()
{
    this._serialPort = new SerialPort("COM6",1200,Parity.None,8,StopBits.One);
    this._serialPort.DataReceived += OnSerialPortDataReceived;
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

I open port:

public void OpenSerialPort()
{
    try
    {
        _logger.DebugFormat("Trying to open Serial Port: {0}", this._serialPort.PortName);
        this._serialPort.Open();
        this.PortIsOpen = true;
    }
    catch (UnauthorizedAccessException ex)
    {
        _logger.DebugFormat("Trying to open Serial Port: {0}", ex);
    }
    catch (ArgumentOutOfRangeException ex)
    {
        _logger.DebugFormat("Trying to open Serial Port: {0}", ex);
    }
    catch (ArgumentException ex)
    {
        _logger.DebugFormat("Trying to open Serial Port: {0}", ex);
    }
    catch (InvalidOperationException ex)
    {
        _logger.DebugFormat("Trying to open Serial Port: {0}", ex);
    }
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

And I am trying to send the content of a string through the serial port:

public void WriteToSerialPort(string writeBuffer)
{
    this._serialPort.Write(writeBuffer);
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

Where is the content of the string:

this._serialPort.WriteToSerialPort("ABC");

      

        
        
        
      

    

My problem is that on the receiving side (another PC with serial port monitoring software) I am not getting "ABC". What I get is "þ" which is ASCII code 254.

I tried changing the Encoding property to all available encodings, but it didn't help.

Can anyone tell me what I can do to send any character string to the serial port using the serial port class? Am I missing or am I misunderstanding something?