Shorpy has the best comments of any site I've ever been on. Thanks to all of you.

That's what it's like, here on Shorpy. Taking just this one photo as an example, look what Los Sharpos came up with to add some interest and content to what initially was just an old photo of a boy with a radio. I don't know of any other site that compares.

I can tell by the gleam in his eye that he was really smiling, on the inside! He's using that machine to communicate with people from 90 years in the future, including Dave. When this shot was taken, Dave was reading him the comments from the first two pics of him that were posted. They had agreed to call him only "the Edwards boy" to increase interest, but Dave actually knows his full name, when he was born, the name of the girl he likes, what camp he went to that summer, and even his shoe size!

The Edwards boy was old man Edwards' son.

It must be a young Tom Swift checking on the weather before heading out on another adventure.

I did some research using the following guidelines: Male with last name "Edwards", born in Washington DC area in the year 1910 (+/- 2 years), putting his age between 8-12. I used the 1920 Census to come up with the data, and found 47 people that fit the basic criteria. One of the other pictures https://www.shorpy.com/node/2076 listed a name of Edward Edwards as then-governor of New Jersey; there was only ONE person on the census that matched the info, and had the name Edward Edwards. He was born in Washington DC county in 1910, which would have made him 11 at the time of this photograph. I could only look up basic info on the site http://www.censusrecords.com While I don't think it was the governor, it might have been his son, as his name was Edward I Edwards Jr. By the way, if anyone wants the list of the other boys with the last name "Edwards" that I discovered, let me know.

[The other photos seem to indicate the lad is visiting from elsewhere, and so probably not a native Washingtonian. - Dave]

Meanwhile, on the little writing table against the wall, we find a colorful Sumidagawa ware vase, named for the Sumida River in Tokyo. This hand-thrown export ware was first produced in the Asakusa District of Tokyo by a succession of Inoue family potters named Ryosai, and usually featured humorous hand-sculpted and applied figures of Japanese village folk and animals, decorated with brightly colored enamel glazes against a brushed red-orange lacquer background. The family moved their production center to Yokohama in 1924, where it is still made. Here's a comparison with a piece from an online auction catalog.

Looks like the lad is adjusting the cat's whisker detector on his crystal radio. The long wires lead to the antenna and ground.