In this paper,the effects of utilizing an Er3＋-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) in analog optical links on the li nk characteristics,i.e., noise figure and gain,are invesitgated,while a high-re sponsivity and high-saturation-power uni-traveling-carrier photodiode (UTC- PD) developed by ourselves is adopted as the optoelectronic conversion compone nt to sustain high power operation.A great enhancement in the link gain is expec ted,without sacrificing the noise figure performance.The experiment is carried o ut to compare the performance of two links,one of which is composed of a laser d iode (LD),a Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) and a photodiode (PD),while the other of which is composed of an LD,a MZM,an EDFA,an op tical band-pass filter (OBPF) and a PD.The link performance is characterized ba sed on the Y-factor method.When the LD output power is set to 17dBm and the DC photocurrent of the PD is as high as 60mA by utilizing an appropriate pump for the EDFA,the later link has demonstrated the lowest noi se figure of 30.3dB,which is 0.4dB smaller than that of the former one without an EDFA.Meanwhile,the gain of the later link is as high as 15.5dB,which is 41. 3dB larger than that of the former one.