ok so ive been listening on 40m a lot lately and people keep throwing around all these weird abbreviations and i cant figure out what half of them mean. like i know QSL means like confirmed or whatever but then someone said QRM and someone else said QSB and i had no idea what was going on. is there a list somewhere or do you just kind of pick it up over time? also whats the deal with 73 at the end of every conversation, is that a Q code too or something different. sorry if this is a dumb question im still pretty new to all this

not a dumb question at all, everyone goes through this. so the Q codes actually go way back to like maritime and telegraph days, they were designed so operators could communicate across language barriers since the codes mean the same thing regardless of what language you speak. QRM is interference from other stations, like man-made noise, whereas QRN is natural static like from a thunderstorm. QSB is when your signal is fading in and out, which happens a lot on HF. there's a ton of them and yeah there are lists all over the place, the ARRL website has one and honestly just googling QCode list will get you there fast.

73 is not actually a Q code, its just an old telegraph abbreviation that stuck around. it means best regards basically. some people say 88 which means love and kisses but thats usually reserved for close friends or a spouse. 72 is a thing in QRP circles too.

yeah what he said. i remember being totally lost my first few months, just nodding along on the repeater like i understood everything lol. one thing that helped me was just keeping a little notepad next to the radio and writing down anything i didnt recognize and then looking it up later. you pick it up faster than you'd think honestly. QTH is location btw, thats one you'll hear constantly. and QRP means low power which comes up a lot if you ever get into that rabbit hole