ok so ive been listening to a lot of HF lately and everyone seems to be using these shorthand codes constantly and i can only figure out some of them from context. like i get that QSL means something like acknowledged or confirmed but then theres QRM and QRN and QSB and honestly i have no idea what half of them mean. is there like a standard list somewhere or did people just kind of make these up over time

also heard someone say 73 at the end of a contact and i assumed that was just like a goodbye type thing, is that right? and whats 88 mean i heard that too but only a couple times

sorry if this is a dumb question just trying to understand whats going on before i actually get on the air myself

not a dumb question at all, everyone goes through this phase. the Q codes actually go way back to maritime and commercial telegraph use before ham radio even existed, so they have a pretty long history. ARRL has a decent reference page with the full list but honestly the ones you'll hear constantly are maybe a dozen or so.

QRM is man-made interference, like someone else transmitting nearby or your neighbor's plasma TV trashing your receive. QRN is natural static, lightning crashes and that kind of thing. QSB is fading, like when a signal keeps going in and out. QRZ means "who is calling me" which you hear a lot when someone is trying to figure out who's in their pile up. QTH is your location. those are probably the big ones for everyday use.

and yeah 73 is best regards basically, a friendly sign off. 88 means love and kisses, which is why you hear it less often and usually only between people who know each other well. some folks have opinions about when its appropriate to use 88 but thats a whole other rabbit hole.

so anyway the thing that always got me when i was starting out was that some Q codes mean different things depending on whether youre asking or answering. like QRV as a question is "are you ready" but if someone just says QRV they mean they ARE ready. took me a while to catch onto that pattern. most of the time context makes it obvious but it can trip you up at first for sure

the 73 thing is funny because you hear people say "73s" with an s on the end all the time even though technically the code itself is already plural in meaning. pedantic people will correct you on it but honestly nobody really cares on a casual ragchew