Does GPS require an installed simcard?

[spaetz]

I know the modem is also the GPS receiver and doesn't do much as a modem until a simcard is present, but does the GPS portion require one be installed too for the separate satellite positioning?

Let's take this logic:
Did you ever use a dedicated navigation system in a car (before they became build into cars)?
Did you need a SIM card to navigate?

I think you're getting 2 things mixed.

While it might sound weird, s/he is not asking something weird. While GPS has nothing to do with cell technology per se, the fact that it is integrated in a cell phone modem component, which pretty much turns itself off if there is no SIM card inserted, makes the question valid.

The analogy to a dedicated navigation system is not so useful here, because dedicated navigation systems do not have their GPS receiver integrated in a cell-phone modem with a binary blog behavior that is hard or impossible to control at time.