so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and i mostly just listen but im starting to actually key up and talk to people and everyone keeps throwing out all these abbreviations and codes and i can only catch like half of what theyre saying. like QSL i think means confirmed? and QTH is location? but then someone said QRN and QRM and i got totally lost. is there like a standard list somewhere or do people just kind of learn these over time. also whats the deal with 73 because i hear that constantly at the end of every contact and i just say it back but i dont actually know what it means lol

also saw someone write QRP in a thread here and i know thats low power but is there a specific wattage that counts as QRP or is it just kind of a vibes thing

yeah so Q codes go way back, like pre-radio telegraph era i think, they were used to speed up morse communication and a lot of them stuck around. QSL is receipt confirmed yeah, QTH is your location, QRM is man-made interference (like someone elses signal bleeding in) and QRN is natural static, like from a thunderstorm. QSB is fading signal which you'll hear a lot on HF. the ones you'll run into constantly are QSY which means change frequency, and QRZ which is basically who's calling me. people throw that out when they hear someone calling but didnt catch the callsign.

73 is just the old telegraphers shorthand for best regards, it's been used forever. some people say 73s which is technically wrong since 73 is already plural but honestly nobody cares at this point it's just a thing people say.

and yeah QRP is generally accepted as 5 watts or less on CW and 10 watts PEP on SSB, thats the pretty standard definition most contests and clubs use. some purists get real particular about it though

i was in the same boat when i started, honestly just takes time. i printed out a Q code cheat sheet and had it next to the radio for like the first year. one thing that helped me was noticing that a lot of the codes follow a pattern — anything with QR sort of relates to interference or slowing down, and QS stuff tends to be about stopping or switching. not a hard rule but it helped things stick for me. QRT means shutting down your station, QRX is standby or wait, QRV means ready to operate.

the abbreviations people use on digital modes and even just typing in forums can be different too, like OM means old man which is just how you refer to another ham, XYL is wife, YL is any woman operator. weird old terminology but its kind of part of the culture at this point