Calling an activity from an AndroidTestCase

Question

I am writing an android test case which requires the execution of a seperate Activity to the Activity being tested (not for the sake of testing but just to gain access to the contentresolver so I can change some telephony settings).

Is it at all possible to start an activity from a test case or in another manner.

I am aware of the AndroidTestCase class used to test activities, an I am using it in my tests, however I need to use a ContentResolver to change telephony settings and then test the reaction of the activity under test so I need another application component to change these settings.

Note: I release the complexity behind multiple activity testing (requiring an ActivityManager) but I only want to use it's method to alter the settings so I could even have the logic in the onCreate method.