Patent ID: 7657041

Claim:
A fiber optical analog signal preamplifier that receives at least one analog signal from a plurality of analog sources, amplify said analog signals and transmit said analog signals to a power amplifier, said fiber optical analog preamplifier comprising: a plurality of first signal converters, each first signal converter acquiring said analog signal from each analog source and modulating a light signal to generate a modulated light signal; a plurality of fiber optic amplitude control devices, each fiber optic amplitude control device comprising a variable optical attenuator connected to receive said modulated light signal from at least one of said first signal converters, said variable optical attenuator receiving a control signal for setting an attenuation factor of said variable optical attenuator to attenuate said modulated light signal to control amplitude of said analog signal; and a plurality of second signal converters, said second signal converter in communication with said fiber optic amplitude control device to receive said attenuated modulated light signal and convert said attenuated modulated light signal to an electrical signal and from said electrical signal, recover said analog signal for transmission to said power amplifier; and at least one multiplexer in communication with two or more of said first signal converters to receive said modulated light signals from each of said signals converters, said multiplexer receiving a first selection signal that selects which of said modulated light signals of the signal converters are to be transmitted to said fiber optic amplitude control device.