so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and i keep hearing people throw around all these codes on the air and i mostly just nod along but i dont really know what half of them mean. like i know QSL is something about confirming but is it confirming you heard them or confirming the contact or both? and then theres QRM vs QRN and i always mix those up. also people say 73 at the end of every conversation which i looked up and apparently means best regards but nobody ever explained WHY its 73 specifically, like why not just say best regards. and what is QTH, is that just your location? someone told me QSY means change frequency but ive also heard it used in a way that didnt seem like that. theres also stuff like OM and YL that i see written in logs and on qrz pages. im not looking for an exhaustive list or anything just the ones that actually come up in normal conversation so i dont feel completely lost

okay so the Q codes go back to like pre-radio telegraph days which is why they feel weird at first. QSL yes means confirmed, like you got the contact in the log and you both agree it happened, thats why you send QSL cards. QRM is interference from other stations, man-made stuff, and QRN is natural static like lightning and atmospheric noise, easy way to remember is QRM has a kind of M for man-made if you squint. QTH yeah thats your location, people will ask whats your QTH and they want your city or grid square or whatever. QSY does mean move to another frequency, like lets QSY to 14.200 or whatever. the 73 thing is genuinely just historical, it was one of the old landline telegraph codes and it meant best regards and it just stuck around, nobody reinvented it. OM is old man which sounds rude but its just how hams address other male hams, totally friendly. YL is young lady but people use it for any woman on the air regardless of age. theres a lot more like QRZ which means whos calling me, which is funny because theres also a website called QRZ. just keep operating and theyll become second nature pretty quick

i was in the same boat when i started lol. one that tripped me up for a while was QRP vs QRO, low power vs high power. and then 88 means love and kisses which you sometimes see people send to YLs on the air, though honestly that ones a bit old fashioned now. 73 to you too is what people say but technically 73 already means best regards plural so saying 73s is grammatically wrong but everyone does it anyway and nobody cares. the abbreviations in general like ur for your and es for and and pse for please, those come from CW shortcuts that just carried over to voice and digital modes. once you start doing any CW at all it all clicks into place way faster