ok so ive been listening to a lot of HF lately and people are throwing around all these weird codes like QSL and QTH and QRM and honestly i have no idea what half of them mean. i know QSL is like... confirming something? and i think QTH is location but im not totally sure. is there a standard list somewhere or do people just kind of make them up as they go

also whats the deal with 73 and 88 i keep hearing those at the end of conversations. someone in my local club said 73 means best regards but then someone else told me it comes from old telegraph codes which is kind of cool if true. just trying to get a handle on all this shorthand before i actually start transmitting, dont want to sound completely clueless on air

yeah the Q codes go way back to maritime and telegraph use, so youre right that 73 has old roots. the ITU actually standardized most of them. QTH is your location, QSL is acknowledgment or confirmation (also the cards people send), QRM is interference from other stations, QRN is natural noise like static, QSB is signal fading, QRP means low power operation... theres a bunch of them and honestly after a while they just become second nature.

ARRL has a decent reference page and most general study guides have a table of the common ones. the ones you'll hear most on HF are probably QSL, QTH, QRM, QRN, QSY (change frequency), and QRZ (who is calling me). 73 is best regards and 88 is love and kisses, though 88 is kinda... well people have opinions about when thats appropriate to use. just lurk a bit more and youll start picking them up fast, it clicks pretty quick once you hear them in context enough times

QRZ is one that confused me forever because i kept thinking it meant something was wrong lol. its actually just asking who called, you hear it a lot when someone comes on frequency and the other op didnt quite catch the callsign. and yeah QRP is a whole thing, theres a huge community of people who specifically run low power like 5 watts or less, they make it kind of a challenge to make contacts that way

honestly the best way i learned was just keeping a little cheat sheet next to the radio for the first few months. dont stress too much about sounding clueless, everyone was there once and most hams are pretty patient with newcomers asking stuff