so ive been licensed for about 3 months now and i keep hearing people say things like QSL and QTH and QRM and honestly i have no idea what half of them mean. i got a general class and my elmer told me i'd pick it up as i go but its been a few weeks and i still feel lost when people rattle them off fast on the repeater. is there like a standard list somewhere or do people just kind of know them from memory after a while? also are there ones that are more important to know than others, like the ones i'll hear the most? some of the guys at my club use abbreviations i've never even seen in any Q code list so im not sure if those are official or just slang people made up over the years

yeah theres definitely a big difference between the official ITU Q codes and the stuff hams just kind of made up over the decades. the real Q codes go back to telegraph days, like QSL originally meant acknowledging receipt of a transmission, but now we use it for confirming a contact or even just the physical card. QTH is your location, QRM is interference from other stations, QRN is natural static like lightning crashes, QSB is when the signal is fading in and out. those are probably the ones you'll hear most on HF for sure.

the ones that feel like slang usually are — like OM for old man which just means any male ham regardless of age, and YL for young lady which again is used for any woman operator. 73 means best regards and 88 is hugs and kisses, neither of those are Q codes they're just holdovers from the old telegram and CW days. honestly after a few months on air you just absorb them, but if you want a cheat sheet the ARRL website has a decent rundown and there are laminated cards you can get that cover the most common ones

QRZ is one people forget — its what you say when you're asking who's calling you, not just a website lol. i made that mistake early on, heard someone say QRZ and thought they were talking about looking something up. the website just took its name from the code. also QRP means low power operation which is a whole rabbit hole if you ever get into that stuff, lots of people who only run 5 watts or less really identify with that term. dont stress too much about memorizing every single one, the obscure ones like QUF or whatever you might literally never hear in your whole ham career