so ive been listening to HF for a few weeks now and everyone seems to be throwing around all these weird codes like QSL and QTH and QRM and i kind of get the gist from context but is there like a master list or something i should just memorize? i tried googling it and got a bunch of different pages with different lists and some seem way more complete than others

also are there abbreviations that arent Q codes that are just as common? like i keep hearing people say 73 and i figured out thats like goodbye but then someone said 88 and i have no idea what that one means. just trying to not sound completely clueless when i finally get on the air

oh man yeah the Q codes thing is a whole rabbit hole haha. the ones you absolutely need to know starting out are QSL (confirmed / do you confirm), QTH (location), QRM (interference from other stations, man-made), QRN (static and natural noise), QSB (signal fading), QRZ (who is calling me), and QSY (change frequency). those come up constantly. the others you kinda pick up over time.

73 is best regards, basically a warm sign-off, everyone uses it. 88 means love and kisses which is why you mostly hear guys say it to their wives or girlfriends on the radio lol. some people get real uptight about 88 being used casually but whatever. there's also stuff like OM (old man, meaning any male ham), YL (young lady, any female ham regardless of age), XYL (ex-young lady meaning wife), and es which just means 'and'. like you'd say 'ur 59 es nice to meet u' in a cw exchange

honestly the best thing is to just keep listening and it clicks pretty fast. ARRL has a decent reference page too if you want something printed out.

same boat as you like 8 months ago. honestly dont stress too much about memorizing all of them before getting on air, you pick it up way faster by just doing it. the ones that tripped me up the most were QRP (low power operation) vs QRO (high power) because people use those a lot and i had them backwards for like a month. also QRX means standby or wait a minute which is handy to know so you dont think the other person dropped the contact