so ive been listening on HF for about three weeks now and everyone is throwing around all these abbreviations and i can only catch like half of what they're saying. stuff like QSL, QRZ, QRM, and then i hear other ones i cant even remember. is there like a master list somewhere or do you just kind of pick them up over time? i feel like im missing half the conversation. also whats the difference between 73 and 88 because i hear both but people seem to use them in different situations. sorry if this is a dumb question im still pretty new to all this.

not a dumb question at all, took me a while to get comfortable with all of it too. the Q codes go back to like early telegraphy days, way before voice was even a thing, so theres a ton of them but honestly on the air you only hear maybe a dozen or so regularly. QSL means acknowledged or confirm, QRM is interference from other stations, QRN is natural static/noise, QSB is fading signal, QRZ is who is calling me, QTH is your location. those are probably the big ones you'll hear most. 73 is the standard goodbye, means best regards basically, and 88 is love and kisses which you only really hear between close friends or sometimes between operators who are married to each other or whatever. ARRL has a full Q code list on their site if you want to go down the rabbit hole but honestly you'll just absorb the common ones pretty fast from listening.

yeah what he said, and also dont worry too much about knowing all of them at once. there are officially like 200 something Q codes but most of em you'll never hear in your life. the ones on CW are used way more than on phone too, like on SSB people will say QRM but on CW they might just send the code without saying the whole word. oh and one more -- QRP means low power operation, you'll see that one a lot on the forums and sometimes on the air when someone mentions theyre running 5 watts or whatever. thats kind of a whole subculture honestly.