so ive been listening on HF for a few weeks now and i keep hearing and seeing all these weird shorthand things and i honestly have no idea what half of them mean. like on PSK31 i see stuff like QTH and QRM and TNX and 73 and a bunch of others and i just sort of nod along lol. i looked some up but there's so many and some sources give slightly different meanings and its confusing. is there like a standard list or something i should just memorize? or does it come with time? also whats the difference between the Q codes and just regular ham abbreviations, are they different things or all the same

yeah they are technically different things even though people lump them together. Q codes were originally made for maritime and commercial radio like way back in the early 1900s and then hams sort of adopted them and expanded on them over time. the official ones like QRM (interference from other stations), QRN (static/natural noise), QSB (fading signal), QTH (your location) those all have pretty specific meanings. then theres a whole other layer of ham-specific abbreviations that arent Q codes at all, like 73 means best regards, 88 is hugs and kisses usually sent to a YL, TNX or TU is thanks, OM is old man which is just how hams refer to each other, YL is young lady, XYL is wife basically. de means from, like if you hear W1AW de K5XYZ thats the calling station identifying itself. CQ is call to any station. honestly the fastest way to learn them is just to keep listening and look them up as you hear them, you'll have the common ones down within a month of actually being on the air. ARRL has a decent reference list if you want something official to bookmark.

i was in the same boat when i started, felt like everyone was speaking a different language. QSL was one that tripped me up for a while, it means acknowledgement or confirmation, like confirming you made contact with someone. thats why the cards are called QSL cards. QRZ means whos calling me or whos there basically. QRP means low power operation which is like 5 watts or less and theres a whole community of people obsessed with that. one thing that helped me was just joining a few nets and listening, the slower CW practice nets on like 40m or some of the digital modes where people type it out, you can actually read along and start connecting the codes to context. dont stress about memorizing everything upfront, honestly most of the obscure ones you almost never hear anyway