Can you use any handheld GPS system without operational satellites?

I don’t know about manually placing yourself and using the built-in maps, but some phones use cell towers and known wifi routers to locate themselves if they can’t see the satellites.

Paperweights.

If your GPS had an INS it would work.

GPS is completely reliant on overhead satellites. Cell tower location is dodgy and overplayed in on TV and the movies. Some GPS systems can place you within centimeters (hubby works with one). Cell towers, at best, can place you in a two or three block radius in a city.

The mere fact that “Satellite” is one of the words in the abbreviation of “GPS” really should answer this for you.

Hell no.

If you have a device that can give you your location without a working satellite involved then it’s not a GPS.

You can put yourself at a place with maps ( paper ) and compass ( Dead reckoning ).

GPS can then be used to pound in tent stakes.

I second @Tropical_Willie‘s suggestion. With a good map and compass, and training, you’ll have all of the accuracy of GPS with all of the reliability of analogue technology, at the expense of a bit of personal convenience.
Plus, if you’re on the run from people with the right kind of equipment, you don’t have to worry about them tracking your unit. GPS works both ways, after all.

“Can I put myself at a place on the map where I am certain of the exact spot, and then use that information to navigate via the onboard maps and compass?”

Yes. You could measure the length of the GPS, say four inches. Then with a compass you could determine magnetic north. So, if you wanted to travel one mile south from your current destination, by placing the GPS on the ground and moving it south, one length at a time, you could use the GPS to travel 3 X 5280 GPS unit lengths in the south direction.

You could even measure the height of buildings with your four inch GPS unit. You could measure the length of the GPS’s shadow and then measure the height of a building’s shadow and by similar triangles, you could calculate the building’s height.

Wait, there’s more. Using a teeter toter, you could calculate the weight of objects using your GPS (assuming you know the GPS’s weight). Balance an object on the teeter toter against the GPS and it’s weight is inversely proportional to the ratio of the distances of the GPS and the measured object from the fulcrum.

So, no, your GPS is not a paper weight.

Well maybe a nice digital map with digital tools would be cool. ahem, GARMIN

@Ltryptophan Garmin is a GPS system.

If the map and compass don’t work, like if you were at sea, you can use a sextant and map.

GPS requires satellites.

INS (Inertial Navigation System) is not GPS and therefore largely irrelevant… except that there are some units that use both GPS and INS; the INS takes over during interruptions in the GPS signal and “tracks” location by dead reckoning… but that isn’t GPS.

@WestRiverrat I think that @Ltryptophan is commenting on a deficiency in Garmin product design.