If you can hold the PDM far enough away from your pod so it can’t communicate, or hold it on the opposite side of your body, you can set the PDM clock and still use it for BG tests without actually deactivating the pod.
It will tell you that you must deactivate the pod, but you hold it far enough away so it can’t communicate (or better yet, have someone else hold it and press the button). You press the deactivate button. It tries to deactivate but since it can’t communicate with the pod it will tell you (or tell the person pressing the buttons for you) it can’t communicate and then you just choose “discard”.
That pod will still be pushing out basal for you. You can’t bolus off it, but everything else with the pod will still be functional. Including extended bolus or temp basals.
Try it at home when you have a pod about to expire. Take the pod off, put it in another room, and then remove the PDM batteries and go through the steps.
After you are done, go over to the pod and listen to it. You can still hear it clicking, delivering basal.
So in that scenario, your pod would still be good for basal, and you’d have your BG meter back. 
See this link for details about the deactivating without actually deactivating steps: