Got a new sim card but unfortunately the prblemis not solved.
I still get the 'simcard not found icon' every now and then.

Sometimes switching to offline mode and back to online brings it to live again.
But not always.

What seems to help is stopping and starting the SSCD application from an xterm.
session. It then asks for the pincode again.

I also pulled the contact pins for the simcard a bit in order to make better contact between the pins and simcard, but to no avail...