BoxCar

If you are licensed amateur there are lists showing which countries the US has reciprocal agreements with regarding operating privileges. There is an official notice along with your license you need to carry with you also. You may need to get an Icelandic call sign also while operating in their country.

It's only relevant on "high site" antennas - those mounted on hill tops and peaks. For a repeater in an urban/suburb area it's best thought of as a control station rather than a repeater.

I will guarantee the FCC knows about all the issues with ham/GMRS radios on the GMRS/FRS channels. Are they going to do anything about it? It's extremely unlikely because the issues are 1) low power, 2) local to a small area, and 3) it's not worth the effort to enforce the rules for something this trivial to the majority of the users.

You only need to post the query once. Having the same question in multiple places makes it difficult for you to learn of good suggestions/answers to you issue.

Your entry level ham license is very easy to obtain. About 8 to 12 hours of Q&A memorization or viewing Youtube videos and taking a 35 question test to show you understand the basics is all that's required. You can find a local ham group to help you study and do the test from the aarl.net website. Good luck, and get legal on using the full abilities of your radio.

One additional kit is Anytone GJ-0854. The PS and mount hold a radio that's 1 1/2" high (40mm) and a 5/8" wide (119mm) from here: Base station power supply

Well, I'm not close but there are several things you can do to check the repeater output yourself. The first thing is to check the power to the antenna with a power meter and dummy load. You need to put the power meter and dummy load at both the repeater output port and, at the end of the coax feeding your antenna to compare. The second is to inspect the antenna and verify its suitability for the channel. This is best accomplished with a nano VNA as UHF antenna analyzers are expensive. Thirdly, how is the antenna mounted? What's the HAAT? That's Height Above Average Terrain. For UHF average terrain will include buildings and trees as well as hills as they all affect the radiation patterns and distance. Once you have done those checks you'll be ready for some "drive tests" to determine both handheld and mobile coverage areas.

Well, that trailer makes a darn good RF block.

LMR will be for the entire business frequency pool.

Nit pick time - a private repeater that carries only traffic from the owner is not required to ID as long as the owner does.

Other than one not needing any metal to act as a ground plane, no.

Welcome to the group and as a note, there are literally hundreds of YouTube videos on getting started with GMRS -- and no, you don't need a repeater!

The Retevis CPS will display the default tones shipped on the radio. I don't remember how you disable the tone or if it was even possible on those radios.

Try Ace Hardware for the screw. Lowe's has them as well, but in blister packs.4

Scadacore will let you model the RF path between your two sites by showing the terrain and earth curvature you need to factor in for antenna height. As far as equipment, the three most important things are: 1) Antenna; 2) Height above ground (AGL) at both sites; 3) radio. If you don't have a clear path, no antenna or radio will work at GMRS frequencies as the signal travels about 15% further than the horizon. Power just means there is more signal in the area, not more distance. The 20 mile distance you estimate would be adequately served with a 25W radio in most instances. Personally, I would choose an Anytone radio over the two you mention as their price/performance is on a par with much more expensive units from other Chinese manufactures. RF Line of Sight - SCADACore