alanbl5

I bought a hd freeview sat receiver form Maplin, as they said it would work in France, but tried to set it up, using a sat finder meter, but could not get anything ! Sat must have been on holiday. I used a compass, to roughly set the angle at SE 28 degrees, then moved the dish up and down, no alteration in sat meter, tried altering side to side, but nothing either way ! Looked at tv picture , but nothing at all, whilst adjusting dish.
Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong, or can you not pick up the astra sat in that region, for british tv channels, or is there another system I can buy that will work in Jard sur Mer, vendee coast, France please ?