X-ray survey of the 2Jy sample. I.

We combine our results with those from mid-infrared, optical emission-line and radio observations, and add them to those of the 3CRR sources. We show that the low-excitation objects in our samples show signs of radiatively inefficient accretion.

We study the effect of the jet-related emission on the various luminosities, confirming that it is the main source of soft X-ray emission for our sources. We also find strong correlations between the accretion-related luminosities, and identify several sources whose optical classification is incompatible with their accretion properties. We derive the bolometric and jet kinetic luminosities for the samples and find a difference in the total Eddington rate between the low- and high-excitation populations, with the former peaking at ~1% and the latter at ~20% Eddington.