i am giving my base station away. Do I need to clear anything?

Just depress the reset button on the back for about 15 seconds. That will reset it back to factory settings.

If your "base station" is a Time Capsule, then you will likely want to erase your personal data on the hard drive. Post back if you need to do this.

I would go one step further than Allan suggested hardware reset and do the full factory..

The reason is the old configuration are still stored in memory of the AE.. not easy to recover but possible.

Factory reset universal

Power off the AE.. ie pull the power cord or power off at the wall.. wait 10sec.. hold in the reset button.. be gentle.. power on again still holding in reset.. and keep holding it in for another 10sec. You may need some help as it is hard to both hold in reset and apply power. It will show success by rapidly blinking the front led. Release the reset.. and wait a couple of min for the AE to reset and come back with factory settings. If the front LED doesn’t blink rapidly you missed it and simply try again. The reset is fairly fragile in these.. press it so you feel it just click and no more.. I have seen people bend the lever or even break it. I use a toothpick as tool.