After finally getting around to do a little research and asking around too, Double side band is using both side bands but WITHOUT the carrier, easy enough by definition so yes this isn't truly AM so I was wrong using this term here.
AM by definition is what I described but isn't double sideband, it is in fact how I described it as both side bands along WITH a carrier. Here I was correct on what AM is.
AM (amplitude modulation) was the early mode used by hams for voice transmission. In AM the signal is a carrier (like CW) that has upper and lower sidebands that are modulated by varying the amplitude (strength) of the signal. Most shortwave broadcast stations use this method. If you tune to the BBC or some such station using either USB or LSB on your receiver you can hear the carrier as a continuous tone as you move slightly away from the center of the signal. If you listen around the upper end of the 80 meter band you may find some hams using this mode. However AM takes twice the bandwidth of SSB and so is not widely used in Amateur radio.
In an AM modulated radio signal, the carrier, is continuously transmitted. Due to the nature of the way AM is produced in the transmitter, two identical modulating signals are attached to the carrier wave, these are called the sidebands. They are a mirror image of each other, identical in every way.
Any audio that you hear on an AM receiver is from the two sidebands. When the radio transmitter you are tuned to is not transmitting any sound, you can still hear from the speaker and see on your S meter that a signal is present due to the background noise being quieter than either side of that frequency. This is the carrier you are hearing being detected by your receiver.
These two modulating (audio) sidebands are located on either side of the carrier wave, one just above it and the other just below.
A friend of mine with an older Drake radio has no AM. What he does is probably what you know you can do with yours. That is, fake it by using one SSB mode (upper) and the drake is capable of producing a carrier to combine it with to replicate AM mode.
Whether or not old or modern radios use both side bands for AM could be up to the manufacture of their radios, Put one on a scope and it would definitely show up if it is or isn't.
