If you just want to work 50mhz up to well over 1300mhz, I would suggest one of the USB sticks off Ebay for $11 or so, preferably with the RTL2832U / R820T chipsets. The 820T seems to work better than the E4000? Cheapest way to try out SDR?
For software, you could simply download SDR#, others as well. The January? 2013 QST had an article on using this type hardware as SDR, although the info in that article about setting up .dll's, config files, etc., is a little dated.
Then if you like airplanes, and want your own ADS-B display, try adsbSCOPE along with RTL1090 software, both free downloads. The latter tunes the USB stick to 1090mhz, and receives aircraft transponder replies, both mode A/C and mode S. If mode S, puts aircraft position and other info on your screen. There's also an app to plot your antenna receive pattern at 1090mhz, and the included antenna works great even indoors if you're anywhere near (within 50 miles) of airplanes. I can see aircraft at 5 miles and 800' with this antenna magmounted to my Flex case.
For HF, FiFi SDR gets good reports, but have not owned/tried it. Apparently it works with SDR-Radio, as does SDR-IQ (have one online) and the Receive Ensemble II HF.
Enjoy.