so ive been licensed for about 3 months now, technician class, been mostly hanging around on local repeaters and just recently started poking around on HF a little bit with a borrowed radio. and everyone just throws these codes around like QSL, QRM, QSY, QTH and i kind of piece together what they mean from context but honestly im guessing half the time. like i figured QTH is probably location because people say it before they give their location but thats just me guessing.

is there like a standard list somewhere or do people just kind of learn them over time? also are there other abbreviations that arent Q codes that i should know? people also say stuff like 73 and im pretty sure thats goodbye or something but again just guessing. sorry if this is a dumb question

not a dumb question at all, took me forever to feel comfortable with all of it. yeah QTH is your location, you got that one right. QSL means basically confirmed or understood, like when someone says QSL that they got your message. QRM is interference from other stations, like man made noise, whereas QRN is natural static and noise. QSY means change frequency, so if someone says QSY to 14.255 they want you to move there. QRZ is asking who is calling, you hear that a lot at the end of a CQ.

73 means best regards, its one of the old numeric codes from telegraph days that stuck around. 88 is love and kisses which you mostly hear people say to their spouses on the air which is kind of sweet honestly. there used to be a whole big list of number codes but most of them died out except 73 and 88.

ARRL website has a full Q code list, just google ARRL Q codes and itll come up. print it out and keep it near the radio for a while, thats what i did when i was starting out. you stop needing it after a few months of actually getting on the air regularly.

one thing that tripped me up when i was new is that the Q codes technically come from old maritime and commercial radio and they were designed so you could use them across language barriers, like you could communicate with someone who didnt speak your language at all. so thats why they're still a thing even though everyone on ham radio mostly speaks english or at least enough of it. CW operators use them a ton because when youre sending morse you want everything as short as possible, typing out interference takes forever compared to just sending QRM.

also worth knowing QRP means low power operation, like running 5 watts or less, youll see people say im running QRP when theyre using a little portable radio. and QRO is the opposite, high power. those two come up a lot.