[giomasce]

That's actually true for most electromagnetic telecoms. Ten orders of magnitude between the transmitted and received power is usually the easy case. With more careful techniques you can do even twenty or more orders of magnitude.

And yes, it baffles me as well.

[jcims]

There's a reason the word 'magic' is invoked around RF more than just about any technology.

[akira2501]

My favorite is GPS. Not only below the noise floor, but significantly below it.. and all the satellites are on the same frequency. Gold codes are insane.

[metiscus]

Power laws are powerful things.