Using curses with Linux console

I'm trying to use Curses on Fedora 12 to output status information to a VT (one of the terminals you can get to by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Fx). When I start up my application on one of VTs ($TERM=linux) the lines for the boxes come out as the characters such as j, q, k and a few other characters. Yet when I start it within a terminal window ($TERM=xterm) everything displays as it should. Can someone explain to me what I need to do to get the VT output to appear as the xterm? Is there a terminal setting that I can set from within my program to cause the output to be correct?