This study proposes and demonstrates, for the first time, a directly modulated NTSC AM‐VSB erbium‐doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) ‐repeated system in the 1550‐nm region that uses a directly modulated transmitter, a push–pull preamplifier, a half‐split band, wavelength‐division‐multiplexing (WDM) techniques, chirped fiber grating (CFG) as a fiber‐dispersion compensation device. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 33: 214–218, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.10279