I am way behind so this is hours late in discussion on cell phone tracking.
The only way to stop cell phone tracking is by pulling the battery out. Even when turned off it still pings the towers and reports location.
That leaves out recent Samsung models, which have a sealed-in battery, doesn't it?
I no longer have access to a spectrum analyzer to see whether and what sort of pinging goes on with the unit off. That said, its important to note the difference between sorta off and really off.
When you push the on/off button on my phone, it goes into a hibernating state, but wakes up immediately when you push the wake button. If you long-hold the off button, you have the choice of really turning the phone off -- "Power off" --, and I believe that under that condition it is really inert, because when you wake it, it takes a minute or so to boot up.