  We analyze pulsar fluxes at 1400 MHz ($S_{1400}$) and distances ($d$)
extracted from the Parkes Multibeam Survey. Under the assumption that
distribution of pulsar luminosities is distance-independent, we find that
either (a) pulsar fluxes diminish with distance according to a non-standard
power law, due, we suggest, to the presence of a component with $S_{1400}
\propto 1/d$, or (b) that there are very significant (i.e. order of magnitude)
errors in the dispersion-measure method for estimating pulsar distances. The
former conclusion (a) supports a model for pulsar emission that has also
successfully explained the frequency spectrum of the Crab and 8 other pulsars
over 16 orders of magnitude of frequency, whilst alternative (b) would
necessitate a radical re-evaluation of both the dispersion-measure method and
current ideas about the distribution of free electrons within our Galaxy.

Astrophysics of Galaxies