so ive been licensed for about 3 months now, technician class, and i mostly just listen on the local repeater and occasionally check in to the weekly net. but everyone keeps throwing around these weird letter combos and abbreviations and half the time i have no clue what theyre saying. like QSL, QRM, QTH, i kind of figured out QSL means like... confirming something? but i dont really get the logic behind any of it or where it all comes from. also people sometimes say 73 at the end of conversations which i assume is like goodbye but why 73 and not just goodbye. is there some kind of master list somewhere or do you just kind of pick it up over time. sorry if this is a dumb question

not a dumb question at all, everyone goes through this. the Q codes go way back to the telegraph and early maritime radio days, they were invented basically so operators who spoke different languages could still communicate, so like QTH means "what is your location" or "my location is" depending on context, QRM is interference from other stations, QRN is natural static like from lightning, QSB is when your signal is fading in and out. QSL specifically means acknowledgement or confirmation, so when someone says QSL it means they got your message or they're confirming something. a lot of people use it just to mean yes or understood now even in casual conversation on the air.

the 73 thing is old telegraph code too, it basically meant best regards or best wishes, nobody really remembers exactly why 73 specifically but its been the ham farewell for over a hundred years so it just stuck. 88 means love and kisses which you still hear sometimes usually between people who know each other well. theres also stuff like OM which means old man, its not an insult its just an affectionate term for any male ham, and YL means young lady which just means any woman ham regardless of age. XYL is supposedly ex-young lady meaning wife. yeah the old timers had their thing going on.

honestly just keep listening and it clicks after a while. arrl website has a decent reference list if you want to look them up all at once.

QRZ is one that tripped me up when i first started, it means whos calling me or sometimes people use it at the start of a CQ to say something like QRZ from W5whatever. and QRP means low power which youll see a lot, people are really proud of their QRP setups. oh and QRO is high power, opposite of QRP. took me forever to remember which was which.

73 de W5XYZ is basically how people sign off in CW and a lot of people carry it over to voice too. "de" just means from in morse/telegraph shorthand. once you hear it enough it just becomes second nature honestly