I just got some samples of the AD9952 and AD9954 DDS chips.
Both look identical, AD9954 has some extra features I don't need
but can simply not program. These parts are real small, will have
to find some VERY small tweezers to bend the leads and file down
a soldering tip to fit. I would try to solder all the gnd and unused
inputs down to a PC ground plane and bend all the power pins up
flat against the top of the chip to be soldered together. The signal
pins would have to be bent up halfway and fly leads soldered on
to go to the rest of the circuit on perfboard.

Anybody try to breadboard one of these 'dead bug' style like this?
Anyone have some circuit advise on using these chips? I am thinking
of using one in a single conversion transceiver. Mixers will be
DBM using push pull digital drive so the DDS will drive a 74xx74
divider and be driven at twice the LO frequency. (several examples
of such receiver front ends in recent ARRL HB's). IF will be 9mhz,
I have 4 identical 9mzh filters, so will use 3 in rx if and 1 in tx.
(got those filters at Dayton about 10 years ago... Clegg surplus).

Was thinking of using 8051 series micro, the built in serial port will
drive the AD98xx and AD99xx dds chips. Question....how do I convert
the 5v digital io of the 8052 micro to the 1.8v levels used by the
AD995x series, or is the DDS chip 5v compatible (on input maybe...
what to do about output? especially on the bidirection serial line....)

Was also thinking about maybe building the rig as a 6 meter single
conversion with an HF transverter front end. What do you think of
this idea?

73's WA2MZE