> The energy of a radar return decreases as the fourth power of the range I'd guess that's because the power / unit-area falls off like 1/r^2 for a ball of rad

> The energy of a radar return decreases as the fourth power of the range I'd guess that's because the power / unit-area falls off like 1/r^2 for a ball of radius r in R^3, and that's for a one way trip, so another 1/r^2 multiple for the return trip. Is that sorta-right?