Some experiments have been performed to research the electrooptical characteristics of polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) with different recipes and preparation techniques at 1550 nm. Results of the research show that the liquid crystal content and surfactant impact the electrooptical characteristics PDLC greatly, and with about 50% LC content, relatively better electrooptical curves may be obtained at 1550 nm. Base on these experiments, some comparatively suitable recipes and preparation techniques are selected to manufacture PDLC tunable attenuator samples. As a result, recipe with the mass ratio as w(DHPA)∶w(E7)∶w(RB)∶w(NVP)∶w(NPG)＝100∶100∶3∶2∶1.5 is adopted and fabricated the PDLC optical tunable attenuator samples. The average insertion loss is 2.3 dB at the wavelength of 1550 nm with the output power 223 μW, and the attenuation range is about 13 dB, voltage linear working range of the device is from 20 V to 70 V.