  We have combined a sample of 44984 quasars, selected from the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 3, with the FIRST radio survey. Using a novel
technique where the optical quasar position is matched to the complete radio
environment within 450", we are able to characterize the radio morphological
make-up of what is essentially an optically selected quasar sample, regardless
of whether the quasar (nucleus) itself has been detected in the radio. About
10% of the quasar population have radio cores brighter than 0.75 mJy at 1.4
GHz, and 1.7% have double lobed FR2-like radio morphologies. About 75% of the
FR2 sources have a radio core (> 0.75 mJy). A significant fraction (~40%) of
the FR2 quasars are bent by more than 10 degrees, indicating either
interactions of the radio plasma with the ICM or IGM. We found no evidence for
correlations with redshift among our FR2 quasars: radio lobe flux densities and
radio source diameters of the quasars have similar distributions at low (mean
0.77) and high (mean 2.09) redshifts. Using a smaller high reliability FR2
sample of 422 quasars and two comparison samples of radio-quiet and non-FR2
radio-loud quasars, matched in their redshift distributions, we constructed
composite optical spectra from the SDSS spectroscopic data. Based on these
spectra we can conclude that the FR2 quasars have stronger high-ionization
emission lines compared to both the radio quiet and non-FR2 radio loud sources.
This is consistent with the notion that the emission lines are brightened by
ongoing shock ionization of ambient gas in the quasar host as the radio source
expands.
