The first bright quasar survey. II. 60 nights and 1200 spectra later

We have used the Very Large Array (VLA) FIRST survey and the Automated Plat e Measuring Facility (APM) catalog of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey I (POSS-I) plates as the basis for constructing a new radio-selected sample o f optically bright quasars. This is the first radio-selected sample that is competitive in size with current optically selected quasar surveys. Using only two basic criteria, radio-optical positional coincidence and optical m orphology, quasars and BL Lac objects can be identified with 60% selection efficiency; the efficiency increases to 70% for objects fainter than 17 mag . We show that a more sophisticated selection scheme can predict with bette r than 85% reliability which candidates will turn out to be quasars. This p aper presents the second installment of the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey (FBQ S), with a catalog of 636 quasars distributed over 2682 deg(2). The quasar sample is characterized and all spectra are displayed. The FBQS detects bot h radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars out to redshift z > 3. We find a large population of objects of intermediate radio loudness; there is no evidence in our sample for a bimodal distribution of radio characteristics. The sam ple includes similar to 29 broad absorption line quasars, both high and low ionization, and a number of new objects with remarkable optical spectra.