so ive been listening on HF for a few weeks now and people throw around all these abbreviations constantly and i can only figure out maybe half of them from context. like i know QSL means like... confirmed? and QTH is location but then someone said QRM and QRN in the same sentence and i got completely lost. is there like a master list somewhere or do people just memorize these over time. also whats the difference between 73 and 88 because i heard someone say both at the end of a contact and wasnt sure if thats normal or if they knew each other or what

yeah there's a ton of them and honestly most guys only use maybe 15-20 regularly so dont stress about memorizing the whole ITU list. the ones you'll hear constantly on HF are QRM which is interference from other stations, QRN is natural static like from thunderstorms, QSB is fading signal, QRZ means whos calling me, QRP is low power, QRO is high power, and QSY means change frequency. QTH and QSL you already got.

73 is just the standard goodbye, means best regards, everybody uses it. 88 means love and kisses and yeah its usually between people who know each other, mostly if theres a YL involved. not weird to hear them back to back if the operators are friends or family. after a while this stuff just becomes second nature, you stop even thinking about it

ARRL website has a decent reference page for Q codes if you search around for it, thats where i started. also just grab any old copy of the ARRL handbook and theres a table in the appendix. i still look stuff up occasionally and ive been licensed like eight years, theres some obscure ones i've genuinely never heard on the air. QRV is another common one, means are you ready or im ready to operate. you'll pick it up fast once you start actually making contacts instead of just listening