CQ Magazine on Archive.org

I noticed that there is a fairly recent archive (posted March 19, 2026) of CQ Magazine from the start in 1945 through 1963.  Apparently after 1963 the copyrights are still in force.  So not too much modern content but still quite interesting.

https://archive.org/details/cq-amateur-radio

I tried checking the issues from 1948 for sideband articles, a couple of rigs were presented as well as an intro article.  There were also several construction articles in 1949.  In 1950 nothing until October, a receiver was presented.

One problem when looking for articles on beginnings of single sideband is that the usage of the term, SSB hadn't become standard.  The first mention spotted was in September 1951 on page 46.  So I guess it's necessary to either read each issue cover to cover or search on the various terms used such as SSSC (Single Sideband Suppressed Carrier).

I still haven't found any documentation on why standard practice is to use the lower sideband on the lower bands and upper sideband on 20 meters and above.

As with QST, CQ included "humor" in the April issues.  See this example from the 1951 April issue page 28:

CQ also has Scratchi, a dialect humor column carried over from the previous publication (RADIO) which CQ succeeded as far as ham radio was concerned.  Scratchi is supposed to be a JA ham who writes a letter to the CQ editor each month - this type of humor was more prevalent in the olden days, as someone who is half-Japanese I can take or mostly leave it.  For example one old time radio show I don't listen to is Amos and Andy - white guys pretending to be black is kinda creepy to me.  CQ started Scratchi up again in March 1947:

Anyway 1951 is about as far into the archive as I've looked so far.  

BTW, one thing I hadn't realized was that hams didn't have phone privileges on 40 meters until February 1953.  I found this by searching the ARRL Periodicals Archive and Search page.

  Unfortunately the search doesn't include CQ or 73, only the ARRL publications and Ham Radio.  But still knowing that phone was added to 40 in 1953 might be a focal point for articles that mention that LSB usage on 40 ?  I just remembered that Buckmaster has a free search of CQ articles:

https://hamcall.net/cgi-bin/cqcgi

Of course the articles aren't free to view but now I can look at the issues up through 1963 on Archive.org.

I did notice that there were a lot more hardware related articles in CQ then than they had later, for example this data on using lamps as possibly dummy loads:

It's always fun looking at magazines, now I have even more to look at !  :)
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Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm