Define multiple echoes on radar.

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Multiple echoes come from the radar energy bouncing back and forth between your own ship and a strong target before the signal finally returns. That back-and-forth path creates several returns that line up on the same bearing, each one at roughly regular range intervals. It’s basically a ping-pong of the signal: initial transmission, a return from the target, then another pass between ship and target producing another return, and so on. These echoes are all from a single target, not separate targets, so you see multiple representations of the same object at equal spacing along the range axis on one bearing.

This isn’t the same as false echoes from birds, which are typically random, transient, and not tied to a fixed large target or to evenly spaced echoes. It also isn’t several ships in one spot, nor a normal single return. Multiple echoes are an artifact of the radar’s signal path and the target’s strong reflectivity.