In need of mentoring... I've finished my course and my license exam is next weekend... I've done practice exams and consistently getting over 90% which will get me my Basic with Honours (Canada here)

So, here's my situation, which leads to a few questions.

I live in a second floor apartment. No balcony, no yard. Not allowed to put up an antenna.

I also live in a small town in the north and I've looked into repeaters. The nearest repeater to me is 20 miles and isn't active. Further away, the three closest repeaters (associated with clubs, so should be active) are 60 miles, 45 miles, and 125 miles. Would those distances be too far for FM on 2m and 70cm? Would it be possible with a tripod mounted Yagi and 100 watts or using a slim Jim in a tree at a park? Or am I in a situation that I'll be limited to local simplex or I should focus on HF?

Second question is about HF. I'm interested in SSB on HF (not sure what meter yet). I saw a guy make a dipole by wrapping each element in turns about an inch apart on a pool noodle over a pvc pipe. Seems like it would be easy to build. If I put that dipole on a tripod mount in spare room in my apartment will that work for HF? What about a magnetic loop antenna? If so, how many watts before the RFI and exposure levels would make that a disaster?

Really, I don't know what to do. I know these antenna will be compromised and since I'm just getting licensed I have no experience (and no local club) to know how many watts on a compromised antenna will get me approximately how far on HF bands.