been listening on 40m for a few weeks now and keep hearing QSL this and QRT that... i know QSO means contact but there's like a million of these things. is there some master list somewhere or do you just pick them up over time? seems like everyone knows what QRZ means but im lost half the time when guys are using abbreviations

oh man you're gonna love this rabbit hole haha. QRZ just means "who is calling" by the way. There's tons of em but honestly you only need to know maybe 20 or so for normal operating. QSL means confirmed/acknowledged, QRT means stopping transmission, QRX means wait/standby. QTH is location. The ARRL has a big list but dont try to memorize it all at once, you'll go crazy

yeah what he said, plus QRM for interference and QRN for static noise. QRP means low power which you'll hear a lot. i still have to look up the weird ones sometimes and ive been licensed for 8 years. just learn as you go, after a while it becomes second nature. 73 means best wishes btw, thats probably the most common one you'll hear at the end of contacts