It's always a treat to fall into an industry by accident, and then 17 years on still wake up every morning and enjoy it, but that's kind of what happened to me with radio. And it's never been more exciting for me than it is now building, from scratch, a new radio station in a new country.

Most of my radio career had been in New Zealand, starting as a presenter (keen but not very good) and ending as general manager of a group of eight CanWest stations in the capital, Wellington. When CanWest were awarded a station in the Solent region, I leapt at the chance of moving here. The possibility had always been there, but applying for a licence is a highly competitive process and there are never any guarantees.

As soon as I heard that we had won the licence, my family and I started the process of relocation, arriving here in February (with our possessions turning up four weeks later. ). My husband Geoff is originally from Kent and has lived in New Zealand for the past 12 years, so he didn't need much persuasion to make the move. We love this region. Our typical Sunday is now spent exploring the walkways and finishing up at one of the many fantastic country pubs.

As a start-up business, a radio station is fairly traditional (except for the transmitters). You find premises, hire good people, work on the proposition daily, and practice, practice, practice so that when you do throw the switch on day one it runs as smoothly as if you'd been here forever. Or, at least, that's the plan.

The build-up to a launch is a continual series of highs and lows. Highs when you manage to find the right people to work on the station, when every day things move forward and it gradually becomes a "proper", rather than paper, business. Lows when things seem to take ten times longer than they should, and when the best-laid plansjust aren't! But thankfully, the good far outweighs the bad.

A question I am often asked is "why is there going to be another station?" Our research showed a huge gap in the market for the kind of output we're proposing and Ofcom's main aim in awarding the new licence was to broaden the range of choice available to listeners. I'm really excited about our format and believe that we will truly complement the area's existing local, regional and community stations.

One of the most exciting things at Original 106fm is the programming it's far more than the usual staple diet of pop music and prattle. The station will feature a broad eclectic range of music, including a large proportion of album tracks, from a wide range of eras much more in keeping with what people listen to from their own music collection. We're hoping, and quietly confident, that listeners will find it stimulating, entertaining, interesting, fun, innovative and informative.

Thankfully, as there's still lots to do, we have a few months to go until we launch our service, and until then it will be lots of early starts, long days, late nights and regular phone calls to the pizza delivery companies.

Obviously, it's unlikely that you'll have heard of Original 106fm yet but you will do. We've been planning our marketing campaign and will launch with a bang later this year (we do know our start date, but it's still a secret!). I know we'll be ready. I know we'll be different."