Eliminating path loss has always been relatively easy if both ends never move. I’m assuming they mean negligible spread over the distance tested instead of no spread.

I work with radio, and I'm not sure how exactly you are "eliminating" path loss on any sort of real world link, even ones fixed in position. Even very high gain antennas and very small wavelengths are going to spread the energy out to some degree over any non-trivial distance (most links I work on are 10km+, so maybe your definition of non-trivial distances are different than mine).