Abstract In this thesis, we use a high power 1550 nm DFB laser and a Ti:LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulator to construct an externally modulated trensmitter for CATV lightwave system. We use two methods to reduce the problem caused by stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) effect in externally modulated AM video system by using high-frequency phase modulation and low-frequency dithering techniques. In this experiment, the SBS threshold can be increased by 6 dB. We also design a automatic gain control (AGC) circuit with a 10 dB dynamic range in our transmitter. After addition with a home-made predistortion linearized circuit, the system performance of this transmitter in a 20 km single-mode fiber link carrying 60 NTSC channels can be achieved with a CNR¡Ù46~52 dB¡BCSO¡Ø-68~-73 dBc¡BCTB¡Ø-59~-63 dBc. As the number of channels increased from 60 to 80, we can obtain CNR¡Ù46~51 dB, CSO¡Ø-65.5~-71 dBc, and CTB¡Ø-55~-60.4 dBc. According to preceding description, we know that our trensmitter can carry 60 ~ 80 NTSC channels.