so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and i keep hearing people say things like QSL and QTH and QRM and i kind of figured out a couple from context but theres so many of them and i dont really know where the line is between ones people actually use versus ones that are just in a book somewhere and nobody says anymore. like i looked up a full list online and there were hundreds of them which seems insane. do people really use all of those or is it just like 20 that matter day to day. also whats the deal with 73 and 88 and stuff like that, are those Q codes or something different entirely

yeah the full ITU Q code list is massive and most of it is maritime or commercial stuff from like a hundred years ago, ham radio only really uses a subset of them regularly. the ones youll hear constantly are QTH (your location), QSL (confirming receipt, or the card you send), QRM (interference from other stations), QRN (static/natural noise), QSB (signal fading), QRP (low power operation), QRZ (whos calling), QSY (change frequency), QRX (standby or wait), and maybe QRO for high power. theres a few more that come up in specific contexts like QNI for nets and stuff but honestly if you know those ten or so youre covered for most everyday operating.

73 and 88 are not Q codes, theyre just traditional numeric abbreviations that came from old telegraph codes, 73 means best regards basically and 88 is love and kisses which is why you mainly hear it between certain operators, not something you just throw at strangers on a net or whatever. some old timers get a bit funny about 88 being used casually. 72 is one some QRP guys use instead of 73 but thats more of a subculture thing.

dont stress too much about memorizing the whole list honestly, you just kind of pick them up as you go. i was maybe a year in before QSB clicked for me as fading because i kept confusing it with something else. one thing that tripped me up early on was people saying QRZ as like a question when someone called CQ and they didnt catch the callsign, took me a while to realize thats just standard and not like a formal procedure or anything. just listen to a few nets and itll start sinking in pretty fast