High-resolution radio observations of Seyfert galaxies in the extended 12-μm sample -: I.: The observations

We present 8.4-GHz VLA A-configuration observations of 87 sources from the mid-infrared-selected AGN sample of Rush et al. These 0.25-arcsec-resolution observations allow elongated radio structures tens of pc in size to be resolved, and enable radio components smaller than 3.5 arcsec to be isolated from diffuse galactic disc emission. When combined with previous data, matched radio observations covering 90 per cent of the sample have been collected, and these represent the largest subarcsecond-resolution radio imaging survey of a homogeneously selected sample of Seyfert galaxies to date. We use our observations to identify five radio-loud AGN in the sample. The nature of the radio emission from Seyfert nuclei will be discussed in subsequent papers.