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[Reply #15 on:]

Thanks for your reply.  I searched the forum and found this http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php?topic=84551.0 which discusses the crystal you suggest.  any other links you know about are appreciated. 
I'm definitely jumping into the deep end of the electronics pool with this, but how better to learn.
thanks again, Ric

[Reply #16 on:]

No, it's an AVR chip problem.

Not necessarily.

The internal clock varies with voltage.

Yup.  By a very very tiny amount.

A different power supply will run the chip at a different clock speed.

Yup.  By a very very very tiny amount.

To fix it you need an external crystal.

If that's the case, the power supply is irrelevant; the target just needs to be tuned.

[Reply #17 on:]

Has anyone accomplished powering an attiny85 using softwareSerial with a battery?

I have.

I don't get output when i use a battery.

Grounds connected?

[Reply #18 on:]

I've had the same issue if the voltage is below 3.8v(ish) you need a regulated 5v supply..... lower voltage less synchronized it becomes

[Reply #19 on:]

You might be able to use NewSoftSerial...I ran into some flaws while trying to use softserial on my ATTiny 85's but after burning the 8MHz bootloader and using the new library, everything ran pretty well (even off of wall warts and batteries)

Cheers!
Mr_E

[Reply #20 on:]

Your code is wrong. Look at this example.

Serial refers to the native Serial. If you want to use a SoftwareSerial, you need to make an instance like this: SoftwareSerial mySerial(4, 3); and then use mySerial instead of Serial. In the example it's a bit confusing because they use a native and a software serial at a time.

[Reply #21 on:]

Your code is wrong.

Who's code?