first, 
it seems, that when it works, \016 switches ON the weird chars, and \017 switches them off (normal ascii)

# echo -e "TEXT \016 qqq \017 TEXT"

would do say this: TEXT  qqq  TEXT

altho if I enable the bash prompt with those chars in it (this is just a sample ps1):

PS1="\[\033[0;32m\]\[\033)0\016\]\[\]lq\[\017\033(B\](\[\033[0;37m\]\u\[\033[0;32m\]@\[\033[0;37m\]\H\[\033[0;32m\])\n\[\033)0\016\]\[\]mq\[\017\033(B\](\[\033[0m\]\w\[\033[0;32m\])\[\033[0m\]"

and once, again, do 
# echo -e "TEXT \016 qqq \017 TEXT"

this time it would say: TEXT  ---  TEXT

(as 'q' in "weird-char"-mode represents something alike a -)