Hi bit new to this technology, got a good mp3 player which has an Fm tuner on it, wanted to listen to radio but have noticed it is showing up MHz on the screen, is this medium wave? any ideas how I would get it to FM? I am just getting a hissing noise and can't seem to pick up any radio stations at all, sorry if this sounds a bit silly but I have no idea and would appreciate any help!

The FM Broadcast band is 88 to 108 MHz. So you are seeing the FM band.

As for why it isn't working. Chances are it is using the headphone lead as the aerial. Depending on how you have that run out it could seriously affect reception. Factor in that the tuners an these things tend not to be very sensitive and you have a recipe for poor performance.

So it can take some fiddling with the headphone lead to get any kind of signal into it.

It's worth mentioning as well that there are some headphones where the cable is too well insulated to act as an aerial. I got caught out like that with a Philips DA1000 DAB/FM radio and the Sennheiser PX100's I use with my other portables.

It's down to the secondary sheilding in the PX100's. It may give a better perception of sound quality, but as you rightly point out,because of how the sheild is internaly wired, bloody awful reception of FM signals when used on radios (That includes some DAB recievers too). Here the shield acts like a Faraday Cage and prevents most of the RF signals getting through!