1999MNRAS.307..293R

We describe the selection of candidate radio-loud quasars obtained by cross-matching radio source positions from the low-frequency (151-MHz) 7C survey with optical positions from five pairs of EO POSS-I plates scanned with the Cambridge Automatic Plate-measuring Machine (APM). The sky region studied is centred at RA 10^h28^m, Dec.+41° and covers ~0.057sr. We present VLA observations of the quasar candidates, and tabulate various properties derived from the radio maps. We discuss the selection criteria of the resulting `7CQ' sample of radio-loud quasars. The 70 confirmed quasars, and some fraction of the 36 unconfirmed candidates, constitute a filtered sample with the following selection criteria: 151-MHz flux density S₁₅₁>100mJy; POSS-I E-plate magnitude E~R<20; POSS-I colour (OE)<1.8; the effective area of the survey drops significantly below S₁₅₁~200mJy. We argue that the colour criterion excludes few if any quasars, but note, on the basis of recent work by Willott et al., that the E magnitude limit probably excludes more than 50per cent of the radio-loud quasars.