I seldom remember my dreams. They fade as I wake, if I recall them at all. Today I awoke remembering the dream that just ended, and it starred my old CB radio.
I own a Cobra CAM 88 Citizen’s Band radio. It’s a 23 channel, tube type AM transceiver, and I have a Silver Eagle D-104 power mic connected to it. I bought the radio used in the mid-to-late 1970’s from my buddy Marc Cooper, who I believe got it from his uncle. It’s probably a mid-60’s radio.
In my dream, I was showing the radio to a friend, and hooked it up to try it out. Now, I haven’t even turned on a CB radio in probably ten years or more, let alone keyed one up and talked. But I did in this dream, and heard distant stations coming in by skip. (skip is when a radio signal bounces off the ionosphere and travels much farther than normal. When sunspot activity is high, you can hear stations from the east coast easier than you can hear locals. High power amplifiers add to the noise factor!)
The odd thing about this dream is More
CB Radio Sticker Shock
June 22, 2026
Jim Reeves commentary, geek, Personal CB, CB antenna, CB radio, Citizens Band Radio, Mobile CB antenna, two-way radio Leave a comment
I first got on CB radio back when I was about 14 or 15 years old. Dad brought home a mobile radio, I think it was a Johnson 5 channel crystal controlled set, probably taken out of a car that was a trade-in at the car dealership where he worked. It had channel 17, which was the trucker’s channel around Visalia at the time. I hooked up a whip antenna on the roof, and had the radio in the garage. The first time I made a call, and got a reply, I was so scared I turned it off and ran into the house without speaking to whoever responded.
Anyway, a few radios and vehicles later, I was a hard-core CB’er. My ‘handle’ was Apollo. After the Moon missions, not the Greek god. I even got a FCC license eventually, KCQ 0827. (The FCC no longer issues licenses for CB. They gave up trying to impose any semblance of control long ago. Now about the only thing you can get in trouble for there is if you interfere with a public safety radio service.)
One of the antennas I had, was a 102″ stainless steel whip on a ball mount. They were not expensive. A new ball mount, spring, and whip might set you back $20 in the 1970s. New. Used ones were a dime a dozen. Almost.
Today, the image above flashed on my Facebook feed.
$140 freakin’ bucks?!?!
Wow.
But.
I just did a Gemini AI prompt, “what is the current equivalent amount to $20 in 1974?”
The response:
An equivalent amount to $20 in 1974 is approximately $135.10 today (in 2026).
This change is driven by a cumulative inflation rate of 575.50% over the 52-year span, meaning the average prices today are about 6.75 times higher than they were in 1974. Over this period, the U.S. dollar experienced an average annual inflation rate of roughly 3.74%.
So, sticker shock, but in line with inflation. Unless Gemini is hallucinating. Again.
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