IEC 61162-1:2016 is available as IEC 61162-1:2016 RLV which contains the International Standard and its Redline version, showing all changes of the technical content compared to the previous edition.

IEC 61162-1:2016 contains the requirements for data communication between maritime electronic instruments, navigation and radiocommunication equipment when interconnected via an appropriate system. This part of IEC 61162 is intended to support one-way serial data transmission from a single talker to one or more listeners. These data are in printable ASCII form and may include information such as position, speed, depth, frequency allocation, etc. Typical messages may be from about 11 to a maximum of 79 characters in length and generally require transmission no more rapidly than one message per second. The electrical definitions in this standard are not intended to accommodate high-bandwidth applications such as radar or video imagery, or intensive database or file transfer applications. Since there is no provision for guaranteed delivery of messages and only limited error checking capability, this standard should be used with caution in all safety applications. For applications where a faster transmission rate is necessary, reference should be made to IEC 61162-2. For applications to shore based equipment of the automatic identification system (AIS) reference should be made to the IEC 62320 series. This fifth edition cancels and replaces the fourth edition published in 2010, and constitutes a technical revision. This edition includes the following significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition:
- new identifiers have been added to Table 4;
- the sentences CBR and MEB have been removed as they are now solely used by AIS shore based equipment;
- new sentences ACN, ALC, ALF, ARC, EPV, HCR, HRM, MOB, NSR, RLM, RRT, SM1, SM2, SM3, SM4, SMB, SPW and TRL have been added;
- revisions have been made to ABK, ABM, GNS, NAK, NRM, RMC, ROR and TTD;
- the methods of testing in Annex B have been revised.